#no but seriously like i could see this scene play out in ST like genuinely BHJFDHBFVGK

[livsmessydoodles]

just for fun heres a little comic of a scene from @andiwriteordie 's fic i'll find a new place to be from!! it just felt SO in character i had to draw it out😭😭😭

anyway GO CHECK OUT ANDIS FIC its such an interesting take on how s5 could go, its incredibly hooking besides being insanely in character and very very funny GO READ IT NOW‼️‼️‼️

[davidpastrsnack]

drive (pt. 1) - matthew tkachuk

a/n: slow burn friends to lovers is my shit and so is matthew so here we are. the name is inspired by the song drive by halsey, a classic friends to lovers anthem. i hope you guys enjoy and let me know what you think!

After three months of freedom with you friends and family, the summer was finally coming to an end. To celebrate, you and your close group decided to rent a house on the lake for the weekend, clear of all parents and responsibility. When Friday morning rolled around you finished packing your bag before heading off with your two partners in crime, Matthew and Brady. 

You grew up in St. Louis, quickly becoming acquainted with the Tkachuk family when your dad accepted a position within the Blues management with Keith. For as long as you could remember, they were your best friends, but especially Matthew. He was the closest in age to you and since day one you were inseparable.

There was no denying that his move to Calgary took a toll on your relationship. You texted every now and then, but it was obvious that you had two seperate lives that the other wasn’t a part of. But despite this, every summer it was like you were still those twelve year olds running around as if nothing had changed.. Except now you two got into a lot more trouble together. 

Matthew was driving and you sat in the passenger seat, always forcing Brady in the back for as long as you could remember. They were bickering about Matthew’s choice of music and you started to zone out, getting lost in the scenery as you traveled further and further from the city. 

The reality of summer ending was starting to hit you. You had graduated college just a few months ago, yet nothing career wise seemed to be panning out. Your parents reminded you not to worry, that you could stay with them until something came together, but it made hearing all your friends’ plans for the year that much harder. You were over the moon for them, but each time it felt like a reminder of your failure. 

You were suddenly pulled out of your trance by the pest in the backseat, feeling him poke your shoulder repeatedly. 

“Hello? Earth to Y/N,” Brady joked. 

“Sorry,” you shook your head. “What?” you asked, turning to face the blonde. 

“Can you go on aux? I can’t listen to his shit any longer.”

You laughed, rolling your eyes as you connected to the bluetooth in Matthew’s far too expensive car. 

“Will you relax?” Matthew muttered to you. “You promised me you wouldn’t stress about anything this weekend,” he pleaded, placing his free hand just above your bare knee. 

“How long have you known me? Seriously, when am I not stressing?” you retorted, raising your gaze to meet with his ice blue eyes. 

“Fair enough,” he chuckled. “But just try, please.”

“You two are something,” you heard from the backseat, shifting to glare at Brady.  

Just like that, Matthew’s hand slipped from it’s post on your leg, moving to turn up the music to shut up his brother. 

-----

After finally arriving at the lake later that evening, you all decided to go out to the local bar, a classic, dingy spot that always seemed to make the best memories. You were sharing a room with your close friend Emma, right across the hall from the boys. You got ready with the other girls, opting for a simple outfit of jeans, a white top, and sneakers. The air was hot and thick as soon as you walked in, and you moved straight to get a drink. 

Hours later, everyone was having a great time, letting loose for one last weekend before reality struck. You had just enough alcohol running through your veins for a fun buzz, but you weren’t too far gone yet. You and Emma were dancing, totally lost in the beat of the music when your face suddenly dropped. 

There was no way. 

But unfortunately your eyes weren’t playing tricks on you. Your ex-boyfriend had just walked in with his posse, catching your glance right away and sending you a sick smirk. You hadn’t seen Logan in over a year, but of course here he was the night you were finally able to relax with your friends. Your buzz seemingly disappeared instantly, and you left the girls to go sit at the booth with the guys. You slid in next to Matthew, his arm instinctually wrapping around your shoulders as he kept listening to the conversation. 

It didn’t take long for him to figure out that something was off with you, he could feel the tension in your body beneath his grasp. 

He lowered his head to be level with your ear, “You good?”

You didn’t want to tell him what was wrong, knowing he would have no restraint. To put it simply, Matthew never liked Logan, but especially not after what he put you through during the breakup. 

You nodded, giving him a soft smile. “I just need another drink,” you deflected, slipping from under his arm to get up. 

“Wait,” he grabbed your wrist, “I’ll come.”

He didn’t know what was going on, but he had a gut feeling that he shouldn’t let you go alone. 

And he was right. As soon as you guys made it to the bar Matthew locked eyes with Logan. 

“Y/N, is that…” he trailed off, not wanting to freak you out. 

You turned to look where he was, sighing as you saw Logan standing across from you two. 

“Yup, it is,” you said, letting out a nervous laugh. 

Matthew’s energy shifted immediately, exactly how it does when he’s on the ice. His light eyes darkened and he visibly stood taller, glaring in Logan’s direction. 

“Matthew,” you warned. “It’s fine. Just leave it alone. Please,” you begged, wrapping your hand around his bicep in hopes of calming him down. You didn’t want anyone to make a scene, and you knew that’s exactly what would happen if the two of them got any closer to each other. 

Just like you thought, your touch made him snap out of his trance, looking back down at you. 

“Fine, but if he comes any closer I make no promises,” he declared. 

After getting your drinks the two of you stayed put, listening to Matthew ramble about the upcoming season. Logan hadn’t moved, but your back was turned to him so you couldn’t see.

But Matthew could, and he most definitely noticed that he seemed to be inching closer to you, his destination obvious. 

The gears in Matthew’s mind started moving right away. He needed to get him away from you but he knew you would kill him if he made a big deal about it. 

You were mid-sentence when he panicked. 

“Kiss me,” he interrupted. 

You were stunned, the shock evident on your face. “What-”

Before you could get another word out, Matthew was grabbing your face and bringing your lips to his. Despite being beyond startled and confused, your body took over and you melted into him. Your lips moved together like they were made for each other, his tongue working perfectly with yours. Your hands moved up his chest and circled around his neck, gently tugging his curls. One of his much bigger hands dropped to your waist, urging you to arch into him. 

Matthew was so lost in the moment that he forgot why he kissed you in the first place. He just couldn’t seem to pull himself away, a fire ignited deep within him by your touch. But finally he slowed his lips, gently separating from you and lifting his eyes to scan the bar. It worked, Logan was sitting on a stool with his back facing you both. Message received, loud and clear. 

You slipped your hands from his neck, quietly trying to catch your breath as Matthew leaned over your shoulder. After a few seconds he looked back down at you, a cocky, but sweet, smile on his face. It took everything within you not to stare at his lips, pink and swollen, but you quickly snapped out of it when it hit you what had just happened. 

You hit his chest, making him stumble back slightly, not expecting it. 

“What the hell was that?” you questioned. It wasn’t that you were angry, but now you were forced to confront your feelings for the man in front of you. You obviously weren’t blind to his looks and charm, but you had always admired them from afar, never challenging your status as friend. And you were truly at peace with that, but now that you had a taste of him you wanted more. 

His face was laced with nerves, realizing he might have really crossed the line. But then again, you didn’t seem to mind. 

“I’m sorry, I-, Logan looked like he was coming over and I didn’t want him to but you didn’t want me to make a scene so I thought if I kissed you he would leave you alone,” his word vomit was in full force, letting everything out in one breath. “I think it worked though.”

“Oh, okay. Thank you, I guess,” you laughed. 

And just like that, Matthew was back to his usual self. 

“Trust me, no problem,” he winked with his classic smirk on, grabbing your arm to guide you back to the booth. 

You rolled your eyes at him, grateful that he couldn’t see your blush. Now you were just hoping that no one saw. The last thing you wanted to do was have to explain that to anyone.  

Nearly an hour later you were standing outside the bathroom waiting for Emma to come out. As much as you tried to act normal with Matthew, you were struggling to say the least. Any feelings you previously had were now infinitely amplified and it made him leaving again that much harder, not that anything would happen if he wasn’t leaving. 

You were scrolling through Instagram as you waited when you saw the silhouette of a big body heading towards you. You assumed it was Matthew, but you were horribly wrong, looking up to lock eyes with Logan. 

“Well hello there, Y/N,” he slurred. Of course, he was beyond drunk. 

“Logan, leave me alone. Please,” you pleaded, head glancing at the door wondering what was taking Emma so long. 

“Relax, I just want to catch up a little.”

You didn’t respond, rather you went back on your phone, hoping he would just walk away if you ignored him. 

“So, you’re finally fucking that asshole Tkachuk, huh?”

Your heart sank at his words, but the anger quickly followed. 

“Excuse me?” you were genuinely stunned at how bold he was being. “Who I’m fucking is absolutely none of your business,” you hissed. 

Just as you went to enter the bathroom in search of refuge from his harassment, another body joined you, but this time it was one you welcomed. 

Brady headed towards you the second he caught eye of the situation, making it just in time to hear Logan’s words. 

“Everything okay over here?” He challenged Logan. He pulled you into his side, his arm snaking around your shoulders. He might have been younger, but he towered over both of you. 

“Who the fuck are you?” Logan asked, puffing his chest out. You rolled your eyes at his actions, not understanding how someone could be so dumb to mess with these two. 

“I’m the asshole’s brother,” he calmly responded. 

You had to stifle your laughter at his comment, turning to hide your face in the crook of his arm. 

At that Logan gave up, storming off back into the crowd. 

“Thanks, Brades,” you smiled up at him, giving his torso a squeeze before letting go and leaning against the wall. 

“Of course. But I have to ask, are you fucking the asshole?” He raised his brows at you, a silent way of saying ‘don’t lie to me.’

“What? Are you crazy?” You exclaimed, trying to deflect as quickly as possible. 

“Y/N,” he warned. 

“No. We are not fucking. Jesus, Brady.” 

“Alright, but you two need to figure your shit out,” he murmured. 

Before you could give him your rebuttal the door swung open and Emma emerged. 

“Hey!” You yelled, grateful for the distraction. 

You grabbed her hand, walking side by side towards the door to head home. Brady trailed behind you and you knew you needed to say something to him before you were back with the group. 

You turned your head back to face him, “There is no shit to figure out. Drop it,” you snapped. 

He threw his hands up, acting like he was totally innocent. But even though you and Matthew were clueless, Brady knew it was only a matter of time before you two came to your senses. 

-----

The next day was spent on the boat with the music blasting and the alcohol flowing. Despite everything within him telling him to stop, Matthew couldn’t help but stare at you in that bikini. He prayed that his sunglasses hid the way his eyes dragged over your frame every chance he got. It felt dirty to look at you like that, but last night was like a slap in the face, awakening him to how far gone he truly was for you. 

The day ended with a bonfire back at the house, everyone cozying up around the pit reminiscing on another summer together. You were laughing at someone's story and once again, Matthew’s eyes betrayed him. He was in the chair next to yours, so enthralled in watching you so happy. You had been so stressed out about graduation and finding a job that you deserved a weekend of freedom.  

He couldn’t help but notice how you started to shiver as the sun went down, only wearing your still-damp bikini and a pair of shorts. He moved to get up to grab you something, but you stopped him. 

“Matty? Where are you going?” 

His knees almost gave out at the nickname. You had called him that ever since you were kids, but everything had a new meaning now that his feelings were all he could think of. 

“I’ll be right back,” he assured. 

You nodded, joining back into the conversation. It was dumb, but you already missed having him there. 

He was back within minutes, handing you one of his sweatshirts. You thanked him, pulling the soft material over your head, taking your time so you could hide the blush that you knew covered your cheeks. It smelled just like him, and you had a feeling that he wasn’t going to be getting it back anytime soon. His gaze lingered over his name and number on your shoulder, noting how good they looked on you. 

As it got later and later, people started going up to their rooms, eventually leaving just you and Matthew alone. 

“Come here,” he quietly gestured towards himself. 

“I’m right here,” you laughed. 

“And you’re also freezing. So come here,” he repeated. 

You couldn’t deny that you were still cold, your bare legs not helping much. You slowly stood up, walking to his chair. He moved his arms from his lap so you could sit down, your body resting across his thighs. His arms wrapped around your waist, pulling you closer to him, and you already felt yourself warm up from the heat he was radiating. 

You sat in a comfortable silence for a while, your head lying on his shoulder as you both watched the fire die out. 

“You’re gonna think I’m crazy, but hear me out,” he mumbled, finally breaking the silence. 

You lifted your head to meet his gaze, “What are you up to now?”

“Come to Calgary with me.”

part two here

[rwbyconversations]

RWBY Volume 7 Review

Two weeks out from Volume 8 and I finally cared enough to write this. Go team I guess. 

Part of it came down to my feelings on Volume 7. It’s a complicated season that’s made me realize a lot of my overall feelings on RWBY as a series, particularly a lot of the less flattering feelings. Volume 7 is just... frustrating in general, as for all the good that it does have, and it does have a lot of great elements to it, it’s let down by a frustrating script and writing choices that feel distinctly amateurish, especially as the series moves on and gets better and better looking each year. There’s elements and kernals here of great character writing, season-wide arcs that land in a really good way and get me emotionally invested in the characters. But on the other... Ren only has two hundred words the entire season and you can tell! 

Volume 7 is a season of dizzying highs, some of the best moments of the entire franchise... and some of the series lows. It’s a season where there’s no production reason for its shortcomings... it just comes down to an awkward script that focuses on the wrong elements far too often. Let’s talk about that. In a very long and drawn out manner.

Thanks to @jamesbranwen​, @h-e-m-o-goblin​ and @retro-riffraff​ for help with GIFs and consultation on this review.

1) The Good Stuff!

A) Atlas is very pretty!

I cannot stress enough how on a set level, Volume 7 is leaps and bounds above the other seasons in sheer environmental detail and setting dressing. Mantle has a great atmosphere with its New York influences, the smog covered backgrounds and oppressive streets and alleys. Ironwood’s office which is deliberately designed to evoke astronomy themes to represent James’ love for the stars. The cold oppressive atmosphere of the Schnee Manor and how Jacques has begun warping it to glorify him with only lip service paid to Nicholas in public. Penguins! 

There’s a lot of great set design work that went into this season and the crew deserve props for it. Genuinely. 

B) Ironwood’s arc is the best character arc in the entire franchise

Yeah just wearing my heart on my sleeve there, I fucking love Ironwood and his character arc here in Volume 7 is the best written arc of the show. I simp for the tin man who just wants to do the right thing. This one season of content is better than a lot of the series-wide material being honest. I went back to James’s big volumes in the last month to rewatch the show and it’s interesting to see the early seeds in retrospect for where his arc goes. His need to protect everyone he can and the brutish measures he considers necessary for such an act, his conflicting loyalties towards Ozpin that manifest in both frustration at Oz’s seeming apathy to the growing conflict, but also desperate desire for validation from Ozpin that what’s he doing is the right call. After the Mistral seasons set up James as going off the deep end following Volume 3, having him open the season with an earnest smile, an immediate apology for the team’s arrest and trusting them with his plans for Amity and Salem is a jarring but pleasant surprise. He’s not been slacking off, he’s been trying to keep the world together in the way he thinks is best. He lets his guard down around the heroes and we see the good man underneath, which makes the moments where he raises his walls hurt all the more. While Em and Merc are still probably my favorite characters period, James is absolutely my favorite character in Volume 7 and Top 5 favorite characters series-wide. I’m very eager to see where he goes from here. He also rocks the beard and fixed his T-Rex arms so James came out of the washing machine that is Volume 7′s costume design. He truly is the Best Boi, and I cannot give Jason Rose enough credit for his performance this year. He hit every note of Ironwood’s character perfectly and I wish the fandom would give him more credit for giving James as much life as he does.

Oh, and as the obligatory comment on mlm rep that I am known for getting obsessively weird anon hate over: IronQrow hug nearly had me crying on a convention floor from how goddamn soft it was. Remember conventions? Ah good times.

This just... hits me... ya know? Seeing him lower his guard so much to come in for a hug just shows how isolated he’s let himself become to let himself have this moment of contact... Godamnit James. Also this is the second time after Martial Arcs that two guys hug and I really liked their ship for the following hiatus. 

C) Soft Qrow hours are nice

Qrow’s a good guy, he went through a lot of bad stuff in Volume 6 but now he’s on the other side and purged his voice of the demon within. I think Volume 7 was a very good year for Qrow overall. It was great to see him interacting with more characters his age and lowering his own guard. His moments of letting the facade drop around James and Clover especially are great expansion for his character. Jason Liebritch hit the ground running as Qrow and gave him a far more dynamic range than I think Vic could. While I wish Qrow going off alcohol had been given more of a focus as it’s kind of done off-handedly that he’s gone cold turkey and otherwise doesn’t get brought up barring his revulsion at the wine in the Schnee Manor, he overall had a great year. And trust me I’ll get to the fights later, I have a lot more I can say about the bird boi there. 

D) I liked the Ace Ops! 

I was ambivilent towards the Ace Ops on first watching. They’re kinda underdeveloped in the context of the season at large and most people immediately pegged them as a miniboss squad/fodder for Salem to kill. But in rewatch they do still get to shine, if not as brightly. They’re very enjoyable. Clover especially is just really fun in retrospect, I love cocky fighters in general, and he was infectiously enjoyable (I’ve already covered the FG stuff in the past, not doing it again). Marrow came a close second because... well it’s Marrow, he is The Best Boi. Harriet got points for being a punchgirl which is always cool, I liked how her Semblance was shown and being cocky while being able to back it up is always a win. Elm and Vine are tied for dead last, I like the body diversity Elm introduces with her muscles and Vine... existed... but overall I think with the time they had, they did get to establish themselves well. I wish I could say that about their relationship with Team RWBYORNJ but this is the Nice Section so we’ll leave it there for now.

This is one of the best shots of the entire season. I adore it. God I like the Teryx design.

E) God the villains rocked this year! 

I am a villain whore. I own that. I will embrace that monkier. But when they’re as cool as this, I feel validated in this Chilli’s tonight. Watts and Tyrian really make the season shine and don’t have a dud scene all season. They have great chemistry together, shining bright in even the weakest or most mediocre episodes. Watts went from “Oh yeah you exist” tier to “Oh yeah you rule” tier. His vendetta against Ironwood feels so real and pre-established, even though this season is the first time it’s ever come up. Watts just ozzes style in everything he does. The animators bring him to life and make every step, every flick of his twist and even just how he moves his eyes all bleed contempt. He’s such a rat and I love him! Chris Sabat finally gets to stretch his wings after a few years playing Watts as just Evil Scientist Guy, and he makes the most of it. 

And Tyrian remains an absolute treat. He didn’t get much in V6 but here he takes center stage with Watts and also gets so much impact because of it. All the little twitches, and tilting of his heads, and dramatic gestures, he’s still just so goddamn cool to watch and we even get a little backstory of him. I know he’s irredeemable. But I just want to watch Tyrian kill people and scream. Like hot damn his line “THE GRIMM SHOULD HAVE DESTROYED OUR ENEMIES, NOT MADE THEM FRIENDS!” is so fucking raw. He’s having fun destablizing a nation with his boyfriend! 

“You want more chaos than a Grimm invasion?” “If anyone on Remannt can do it, wouldn’t it be you?” There is no heterosexual explanation for how these two look at each other and yes this is me outing myself as a Nuts and Volts fan.

Watts and Tyrian really do become the absolute highlights of the season alongside James. They have a great dynamic and even during their more slower moments there’s so much care and thought put into their every mannerism. Animators, seriously, great job, I love what you did. And their fights... we’ll get there. But they’re so goddamn good. 

Look they even run the same! They’re soulmates! 

Honorary mention to Salem by the way. She’s only in two scenes but her presence is felt throughout Ironwood’s arc and his growing fear of her and she damn well delivers when she shows up. That shot of her arriving in person is a killer shot to end on as well.

Oh and I guess Cinder and Neo exist don’t they? Eh, we’ll come back to them. 

F) Oscar got a character arc!

Finally! He did it! He got an arc that began, continued and ended all onscreen! It only took four tries! 

But yeah Oscar had a really good set of scenes in Volume 7. I like him being the first to confront Ruby on the Ironwood lie, bringing up the hypocrisy after their condemning of Ozpin just last season. I like him having a more forward role (outside of not getting to be part of the celebration in episode 4 what the hell guys), and that he’s the big link between RWBY and Ironwood was a great call. Having Ozpin shelved for one more season so Oscar can take center-stage was an inspired choice. I love his dynamic with Ironwood, and how James closing himself off emotionally gets reflected in how he begins slipping in how he refers to Oscar, starting off as treating him and Oz as separate, ending with him gunning Oscar down as he doesn’t care anymore to differentiate the two.

My big issues with Oscar’s arc are that I’m first of all annoyed at the lack of followup on the Oscar stuff from V6, I’m still waiting for Qrow to apologize for punching Oscar guys! I also really wish Neo’s first attack wasn’t offscreen. CRWBY’s cliffhanger fetish meant I got to break out the Offscreen Pine jokes again. And of course, the Neo hallway punch was a bit bullshit.

G) (Most of) The fights are amazing

There’s no punchline. These fights are great, two of them are in my Top 10 Series Wide fights list and at least the duds aren’t Volume 5 bad.

If you’d told me before Volume 7 that Watts would get an extended firefight with James, I’d have felt that a bit cheap as Watts to me doesn’t feel like a fighter, more a planner who hides behind armies of mechanical soldiers. But damn if they didn’t sell me on Watts “You’ve yeed your last haw” Watts whipping out a Glock just to spite James. 

This is another one of my favorite shots in the entire series.

Ironwood vs Watts is potentially my favorite fight in the entire series, and if it’s not, it’s easy Top 3 alongside Yang vs Mercury and Pyrrha vs CRDL/Mercury. It makes great use of Amity in the abandoned gravity biome meant for SSSN vs JNPR, with Ironwood and Watts deftly moving around in a manner that very easily could have been difficult to track with the constantly shifting gravity, but the crew do their best to keep it coherent as to who’s where. The credits showed their dedication also stretched into visual continuity, as James and Arthur’s route throughout the Arena was carefully considered so they’d loop around organically. 

This is what I mean when I say the crew went above and beyond to keep things clean.

Ironwood vs Watts could have easily failed to impress, given its lack of choreography on the level the series usually does, but the team’s efforts went instead into showing a situation that lets Watts get a dragged out battle: James wins whenever he closes the distance here, so Arthur’s constantly on the run and being forced to tamper with the arena. Great camerawork, a GOD TIER song from Caleb Hyles that I’m still listening to today, and two characters with a fantastic history coming to blows makes for easily the best fight of the season and a series-wide highlight. Watching it develop from storyboards, to mocap, to animations and the full version is a delight to see. This is what CRWBY can do when everything comes togehter. The orchestra’s all tuned. It’s a goddamn symphony.

THIS is my favorite shot of the season.

Tyrian also gets to shine with his two battles this year. His alley fight with Qrow, Robyn and Clover is short but sweet, the corvid and the scorpion especially trading brutal blows in the cramped space. Qrow goes full Devil May Cry with his style-switching here, Harbinger being swapped between sword, tonfa and gun forms freely alongside Qrow applying The Power of Punching. His 1v1v1 with Clover and Qrow though is the true highlight of the season in terms of choreography. It’s lighting-fast, and has some impeccable shot work. Qrow gets to use his scythe with deliberate nods to the Red Trailer, Clover gets to shut up everyone who doubted his weapon, and Tyrian is just along for the ride and he makes the most of it. It’s frentic, it’s heart-pounding, it’s everything a fight should be. 

Honorary mentions as well go to Ace Ops vs the Geist, which is just really fun and has a great backing music choice, the opening battle with Sabre having Ruby’s obligatory ten seconds of fighting that come at the start of every new era of the series, and the Ace Ops vs RWBY fight which has some good choreo in places.

H) Winter and Penny have good chemistry

I don’t have a ton to add here, I just like their dynamic and how they advance each other’s arcs. It’s nice writing. I also like Winter apologizing to Penny when she’s angry at Jacques and takes it out on Penny by accident with the “You wouldn’t understand” line.

Penny as a Maiden is a nice idea, I think her new design is cute. Penny says trans rights.

Those are a lot of my favorite things about Volume 7. It’s a killer season when it’s firing on all cylinders but unfortunately... it often misfires in frustrating ways, many of which are unfortunately due to core emblematic problems with the series that won’t go away.

2) The Bad Stuff

A) The costumes

It’s been a over year. It’s low hanging fruit. I don’t care. Most of them are still not good and they’re ludicrously over-designed.

Blake’s in a fetish suit and I wonder how she even goes to the bathroom. Weiss just looks like an abino Sabre alt, Yang is what a Halloween costume site would describe as “Sexy UPS Driver,” (why does she have a thigh window) Ruby... looks fine, it’s one of her better costumes. Jaune’s hair is silly, Ren’s model has lost some muscle definition and he looks like an e-boy, Nora’s costume really doesn’t fit the Atlas visual design and looks like a rejected Kingdom Hearts costume. Cinder’s is too black and I actually can’t track her in darker scenes because of it (which is kinda bad during... a fight scene... where I need to know where she is...), Neo looks like a Ren Fair cosplayer doing a bit for her OnlyFans, Winter’s is anatomically weird with super skinny arms and legs, and Blake’s hair is a fucking hate crime. 

Qrow’s is one I liked at first but in retrospect it does feel like a downgrade. To quote @h-e-m-o-goblin​ from a Discord chat:

in a show like rwby, where color is such a vital defining aspect of every character, a cohesive colorscheme goes a long way. qrow's original outfit works great in this regard. neutral tones. greys, whites, and blacks, with red accents that pop against the otherwise sparse color. it's good! it's distinctive! it doesn't feel cluttered and it doesn't look like a clown vomited on him! the subdued colors really lend themselves to the grey, cynical energy qrow seems to carry with him. a literal lack of color in his life. the outfit itself feels like something he would wear; a combination of "clearly trying to look cool" and "a little disheveled and laid back." the design breathes, it isn't cluttered. let's contrast this with his vol 7 outfit. a lot of outfits in vol 7 suffer from this problem, but first and foremost it doesn't look like something he would wear. where his old outfit had a casual feel to it, his new look feels like someone dressed him up for a family christmas dinner. it's too... tidy. now of course you could argue this is him "cleaning up his life," but i dont feel like you have to sacrifice his own personal style in order to convey that. if that's really what they were going for, they easily could have just, oh i dont know, given him a cape that isn't tattered???

remember how i said qrow's original outfit really made his colors pop? how less is more when it comes to having a character with a specific color theme? vol 7 butchered that. we suddenly have articles of clothes that are tinted with greenish blue tones, browns, and with gold trim? on TOP of the old colors he already had in his design. it's muddy. it's ugly. the burgundy vest is fine, if they wanted to work more color into his outfit they should have done it that way throughout, shades of grey and different tones of RED. his COLOR. it just feels like they tacked so much on there without a second thought and i really think he deserves better. its just. such a mess.

The ones I did like were Watts’ new coat (I like the puffy hood), Penny’s is fine, the Ace Ops look great, Ironwood’s new outfit is stellar (those last six are great examples of how to do a lot with just primary colors of white and red), Neon’s Jolyne cosplay is cute and Flynt is slick. Otherwise, Volume 7 feels like it’s taken a lot of the wrong lessons from the costume design of the earlier seasons. Less is often more but now it feels like they have a pathological aversion to empty space on the costumes, leading them to feel like... costume vomit for lack of a better word. I didn’t love the Mistral outfits, but their modifications at least were carried by how many of them called back to the Fall of Beacon and emphasized the themes of loss in Volume 4. The new Atlas outfits... don’t have that shared theme. It feels like a hodgepodge of different design influences without trying to find a way to unify them. It’s like putting Baki the Grappler beside My Little Pony, they just fail to mesh.

Also for fuck’s sake already CRWBY just give the girls muscles already.

2) JNR suck and Ren’s arc is glorified character assassination

I don’t love JNR. They’re fine, but the show has arguably not needed them for a while and while I’ve liked them all at different points, it’s never been adoration outside of Ren in Volume 4. I was cool with the idea of them staying in Argus to help cover Mistral after its Huntsmen were wiped out, and Volume 7 has... made me wish they did that.

Jaune is just comic relief, and it kinda blows for later reasons but the big one is that he’s just not very funny. His big role in Volume 7 is basically to crosswalk some kids so we can have a joke scene during the Mantle Battle where Jaune uses his tactical genius to teach people to walk in single file. I feel like at this point Miles is just actively trying to kill Jaune’s fandom out of spite for how badly Jaundice was received. He’s never allowed to be cool or try and redeem himself. His hatedom aren’t going to stop hating Jaune because he gets more comedy guys. They’re going to stop when you write Jaune well. It’s a bummer he got some genuinely great upgrades for his sword and shield and never gets to use them outside of the opening. 

Nora exists. She got a surprising amount of focus this season in that she got focus of any kind. I liked her confronting Ironwood over his choking of Mantle because we know she was once the kind of person Ironwood would have been stifling. I like her being the one to realize the loophole in Jinn’s “You can’t” line. I don’t like much else about Nora this year, or at least the Nora the writing team are pushing. She’s not funny like Jaune but Nora just absorbs so much screentime in the first half with her constant shrieking. Sam Ireland has good range but making Nora into Discount Harley Quinn is pushing her out of it. She sounds shrill, making Nora sound like she has no heart outside of the election rally. A shrill voice is one thing. A shrill voice that never lands a single joke? Yeah that character is tainted by association. 

And Ren... oh God Ren what happened to you.

The Volume 7 commentary confirmed a suspicion of mine that Ren’s arc was heavily cut down from what was planned. Even watching V7 I could tell his arc was bare-bones at best, and it’s downright character assassination in places. Why is he suddenly so cold to Nora? Why is he now so obsessed with training? Why does he side with Ironwood for all of... one line which is this last between episodes 7 and 11. Ren only has two hundred words of dialoge in Volume 7 and they feel so weird in places. Ren goes from seemingly disliking Nora, to kissing her, to never referencing the kiss, to partaking in the Worst Scene Of The Season, all with no consistency. It’s not even threadbare. Ren’s arc just has no connecting tissue for so much of it! It’s insane how badly Ren was hurt by this, and I shudder to wonder how bad his Volume 8 arc will be because you know that was one of the first plotlines they cut down on when they inevitably overreached again. 

I don’t know how they made Renora kissing feel unearned? But by God they found a way with how much of a trainwreck Ren’s writing is in regards to tainting this. 

If Ironwood is an example of RWBY doing character writing well, Ren is the mirror image of how badly they can do. JNR really suffered from Volume 7 (also fun fact, Ren has about 200 words of dialogue? Ironwood has 4400). Maybe not to the level of irredeemable dislike? But very close to being on the same tier as Cinder of “Just go away already.”  I’m not looking forward to their content in Volume 8. 

3) RWBY themselves are poorly handled in Volume 7

It’s unfortunate that the actual title characters of the series are also some of this season’s weaker links. RWBY feel... superfluous to this season in a way they’ve never felt before. It’s baffling how much of the season doesn’t change if you just don’t include them, and apparently Volume 7′s first draft? Was even worse.

The commentary says that many of the RWBY moments were added later in production. Stuff like Ruby and Renora at the rally, Blake and Yang’s talk with Robyn and Ruby and Qrow’s chat were all either added in near the end of the writing or were “low priority” enough that they could have been cut which is... veyr alarming that’s stuff even the main protags have to worry about! 

Ruby feels half-baked. I was looking forward to her in V7 after how V6 gave her a more dynamic personality and the focus she got in Brunswick, and having Penny’s return had me interested in seeing Ruby grapple with her emotions about it. She watched Penny die, how would it influence her to see Penny back and OK? Good question, we never get to see it. Ruby’s just OK with Penny’s return, the one time they touch on it Penny immediately glosses over it. Ruby just goes back to her old happy go lucky persona where any and all negative emotions are immediately forced down instead of confronting them and growing from them. I’m getting a little tired of Ruby bottling her grief and being teased about finally getting her snapping like a Twix Bar. We finally got her crying and it lasted all of ten seconds. And it doesn’t help that Ruby’s still getting shafted for fights. Her scythe choreography has no excuse being as flacid as it is now after Qrow vs Clover showed they can do scythe fighting! Why is Ruby being upstaged by (let’s be real) a supporting character! Why is she being limited to ten seconds of good combat then nothing for the rest of the season outside of flimsily swinging it or shooting. It’s disappointing, especially after how good V6 Ruby was.

I swear, Gravity’s not just my favorite episode of the season just because Ruby finally cries in it.

Weiss was kinda just done dirty though. At least Ruby has a good outfit. Weiss confronting her father has been a long standing plot thread for the series, it’s been Weiss’s Big Thing since the White Trailer. And when Jacques finally appears, he’s very... bland. He’s just evil corporate dude who exists less as an obstacle for Weiss and more just a roadblock for the plot through the election. Weiss finally gets a chance to take her father down and work to redeem her family name... but instead of earning said victory and it being treated with the same gravitas and emotional weight as Blake defeating Adam... Weiss has her victory handed to her. And it’s played for comedy by her abusrdly attractive mother. 

Listen, I like I Willow Schnee. I think she’s a fascinating character and I like the idea of a person who is aware of the harm they’ve done by accident but is too broken to fix the issues she accidentally left. I love her calling Weiss out on her treatment of Whitley. But she is absolutely a Deus Ex Machina that exists to get Jacques out of the plot as fast as possible. You mean to tell me Hackerman Watts never once made sure Jacques had hidden cameras? Or that none of the staff found Willow’s cameras and reported them under the assumption they were White Fang spies? It’s so... convenient. It’s handing Weiss her victory on an unearned platter. Which sucks. I was really looking forward to Weiss beating Jacques. Instead she just gets given the plot device while JNR engage in the Worst Scene of The Season in that Whitley food stunt.

Me whenever I’m asked to rewatch Cordially Invited

Blake and Yang have much the same problems, in they never separate. I know they’re going to be together. I know CRWBY are making it canon (get it over with already). I still would like Yang and Blake to have individual character scenes. I’d like Blake and Marrow to talk about being a Faunus Huntsman in Atlas (another thing that got cut thanks to Robyn Hill). I want Yang and Ironwood to discuss their PTSD and have Yang thank Ironwood for his trust in her that he commissioned the arm despite Yang attacking Mercury. I want Blake to be well animated in fight scenes so she’s doing more than just jobbing so Yang looks better. I want Yang to stop hogging all the good Team RWBY choeography. I want them to interact with other characters and continue to grow instead of feeling like two halves of one character. And no, making a meta joke of how Blake and Yang don’t talk to other people doesn’t make it OK. It just means you’re self aware about your own faults. 

(Also give Yang better merch or quit the favoritism. If you’re gonna milk her, put effort into it beyond crapply overpriced flannel. RT’s merch store is actively making me hate Yang.)

Team RWBY’s biggest contribution to the season is the Ironwood Lie which is... a can of worms. They certainly had a point in withholding some of the bigger truths from James but I feel by Pomp and Cirumstance he’d proven himself truthwrothy enough to warrant being told the truth about Salem. But then when he’s finally told the truth, it’s offscreen’d and the consequence isn’t “Why didn’t you tell me earlier” but “Fucking Ozpin man.” Gravity has it bite them in the ass, but it’s more an accessory to Yang and Blake telling Robyn about the Amity tower. I wish more had been done with the team disagreeing on whether the lie was a good choice or not, maybe have Yang be hardline against it due to her own “No more lies and half truths” policy instead of... having Yang tell more lies and half truths (Commentary confirms she never told Ruby and Weiss about the Robyn stuff BTW). But that’s a wider problem where RWBY aren’t allowed to disagree beyond surface level “I don’t know if this is the right call” dialogue. There’s never a threat of one of them cracking and just spilling the beans to James, everyone just blindly trusts Ruby and Qrow tells the audience “No this is different from when Ozpin lied. Trust us.” 

This is the most RWBY get for content in the season finale: Ruby just nuking Cinder with no difficulty after having trouble with the eyes three episodes ago. Kinda lame tbh.

Team RWBY are just disappointing in Volume 7. They’re not given good animation, their story roles are largely insignificant, the impact of their roles on the story is threadbare and... well most of their costumes suck don’t @ me even CRWBY have admitted Blake and Weiss’s haircuts looked bad. It’s a whole barrage of a letdown for the main girls. And it’s really sad that the best scenes of the season... are usually the ones where RWBY are nowhere in sight.

Why the hell didn’t Yang get to keep the sunglasses come on guys. One job.

4) Robyn, the election plot, and the Happy Huntresses

Oh God, Robyn Hill is... not great. I could and likely will write a full meta on her character and how they bungled it but I’ll just be blunt here: I don’t like her design, the colors don’t mesh well, he head’s too small, Christina Vee is sleeping through the role and her weapon’s lame. Introducing her in a scene where she threatens to attack our heroes, and her agents are actively sneaking up on them to do it, is not a great first impression for a hometown hero. And that the commentary thinks she’s meant to be the hero in that scene is... staggering. 

RWBY’s greatest threat yet is a wine mom Karen and her Home Owners Association army. 

The election plot is less a misfire and more the engine just exploding. There’s so little good content between when it’s introduced and concluded, with it usually being individual scenes that are more good in spite of their connection to the plot (such as Tyrian’s massacre). It drags in pacing, going on for nearly half the season between episodes 5 and 10, and it purely exists as a roadblock to keep RWBY spinning their wheels while Watts and Tyrian keep going with the main plot. I don’t know why CRWBY went for this plot. They could have easily had something else fill the gap that also allowed for a lot of the character beats (such as Marrow and Blake’s talk and Ren’s entire arc) to shine, or at least condensed it to the important elements instead of letting it become bloated. It ends in such an unsatisfying way where Willow just shows up and goes “We have four episode left, here’s the plot device to beat Jacques, get back ot the main plot.” If they wanted to do the election plot, the best route would have been to give Volume 7 more episodes or stretch out its events to two seasons, but neither is realistically possible while RWBY lives off the teat of AT&T. 

Jacques and Robyn are just boring. Evil corporate man and a lame adaptation of Robyn Hood who only has fans because of thirst who also like downplaying Robyn making a racist remark at Marrow (to say nothing of that weird subsection of Robyn fans who make her a Fox Faunus who cut her tail off to join Atlas Academy which is... certainly a creative choice especially when Marrow and Neon are punching holes in that angsty BS backstory). They can’t carry this plot and the artifical attempts to make it seem more exciting with the two cliffhaners ending on Mantle under riot or Grimm attack are laughably cut short by the next episode in each case opening the morning after. On binge watch it becomes weirdly funny more than anything and that’s not a good reaction. The dual cliffhangers being cheaply resolved is a short but succint example of V7′s pacing issues, and they almost always loop around to the election plot being too bloated, slow and just boring.

Also the Happy Huntresses are just... lame. I like their Semblances but that’s it. Fiona’s OK because she gets some screentime but May’s just “the surly one” and Joanna doesn’t even get her Semblance or much dialogue (oh wow she really is just a female Sage Ayana isn’t she). Robyn should not have been leading the HH and running for Council. That’s really stupid. And kind of wrong. Having May or Fiona be running instead while Robyn leads the team in relief efforts would have been better and could have split the focus more effeciently instead of leaving May and especially Joanna feelng like roster padding. There’s also some delicious irony in the show trying to frame the HH as the resistance fighting for the people and representing individuality, only for them all to have the same boring outfit and weapons (I think even the exact same model just with different sizes) while the Ace Ops are meant to be the military drones who are “Just following orders,” only for them to be more racially diverse, more diverse body-type-wise, and have more unique weapons. It’s another one of those odd creative dissconnects between what the writers wanted and what the artists/animation teams chose to do. 

The election plot is overall toxin for Volume 7, and Robyn in my opinion, has one of the worst introductory scenes of any character in the franchise (and CRWBY have tacitly admitted that V7 had a character they were surprised at how controversial they were, which has to be Robyn). In a year where they were already juggling so much content and characters, adding in this bloated subplot was something I don’t think anyone wanted, especially now that we know we lost so much content on the sacrificial altar for this. It’s a black mark on the season and I don’t really care for the return of the Happy Huntresses or Robyn in Volume 8. None of them are interesting enough to care for outside of meta reasons like “cute.” 

Also fuck you Fiona, can’t believe you got a shirt before Ironwood. 

5) Cinder and Neo sure exist

To be fair, this is one of Cinder’s best years, easily her best since Volume 3 but that’s more because Cinder in the Mistral era was crap. (And if I wanna be cruel, because Cinder wasn’t in two thirds of the season)Her fans were finally vindicated after years of telling anyone who dunked on Cinder that “nooooo she has a super covert backstory that’s gonna be amazing when it’s revealed! You’ll see!” And well they finally got it. All of one line during a fight about how Cinder “refuses to starve.” 

It’s still something so I guess we have to take it. Seriously... how do we still not have Cinder’s backstory. 

There’s just not a ton to say about Cinder and Neo in V7 barring I that don’t think they needed to be here. They feel very superfluous and just here to have a big boss fight in Cinder’s case alongside continuing her streak of ending the odd numbered seasons fighting a female side character... which for me became an exercise in tyring to find during Cinder during the damn fight.

And this is why when most people saw Cinder’s V6 outfit they went “It’s gonna be hard to see her in darker environments,” then were vindicated when it became legit difficult to see Cinder in this scene. God if they at least just made the inside of the cape red it’d be easier.

Neo is Neo, which means she makes funny faces and mocks Cinder (I like that), but she doesn’t get a super good fight which uh... we’ll get to. I’m interested to see her finally exploding at Cinder and going for a backstab, but really Neo in V7 was kinda hit hard by the double whammy of the Oscar Hallway Punch and how humiliating ORNJ vs Neo was for ORNJ. Cinder’s definitely had far worse years and after how aimless she was in Mistral this feels like a sep in the right direction, but at this point CRWBY just need to shut up and tell us her deal. It’s been seven years guys. Come on. At least make her interesting if she’s gonna say around. They’ve had worse years, but unfortunately Cinder and Neo’s role in the finale leads into...

6) Some of the fights weren’t good

I wanna be clear, I like most of Volume 7′s fights. It’s just a bummer the worst ones are back and back and make up a chunk of the finale. ORNJ vs Neo is just crap. It’s the worst fight since the Battle of Haven. There’s nothing else I can say, it’s poorly animated, paced, choreographed and written. JNR especially are made to look like complete jokes after they spent all season training, to the point where it looks like V2 Yang could solo V7 JNR after this. Oscar I expect this from because he’s not allowed to have fun stuff onscreen after accidentally stealing the Haven budget for his fight with Hazel, but JNR were just done dirty. There were ways to make the fight work in a way where Neo still won but JNR looked good. They went for the worst possible outcome that just leaves Neo looking like she got fan-wanked and JNR looking like they’re just not allowed to be cool due to Miles’ spite at the Jaune-Self Insert stuff (and that’s not even getting into JNR being forced to run from lame rent a cops who can’t even handle a single Grimm). Cinder vs Winter and Penny isn’t much better, with her dark outfit making it very hard to track the fight because she blends into the background too well. It’s not a great showing for Winter or Penny given their earlier feats but, hey, some random female character had to fight Cinder in this odd numbered volume, carrying on Glynda, Pyrrha and Raven’s tradition. It’s at least better than ORNJ vs Neo, but that’s really not saying anything. At least Cinder’s VA work isn’t too bad this time but this fight commits the cardinal sin of a finale fight: It’s just not super interesting because we know Cinder can’t kill both Winter and Penny and she’s not becoming a Maiden, while Winter’s been too blatantly set up so it has to be Penny.

RWBY vs the Ace Ops also gets a dishonorable mention due to the choreography on display here... and the lack of it for Weiss, Blake and Ruby. Ruby never once swings Crescent Rose the entire fight and is just reduced to getting the tar kicked out of her by Harriet. Weiss barely gets to use her sword and largely just sticks to her summoning and glyphs which makes for a very visually uninteresting fighting style at the best of times. Blake just swings around and gets caught by the bad guys so Yang is motivated to fight stronger. She never dual wields (again) and her best moves are just setting up Yang to do all the hard work while Yang gets to personally KO two of the Ace Ops. There’s a lot that can be said about whether or nor RWBY earn the win, but while the animation team try to sell the Ace Ops landing heavy hits, having only Blake’s Aura even flicker really undercuts the idea from the commentary that this wasn’t meant to be a stomp for RWBY and they had to work together and be in synch to win.

Which is why Yang solos two of the Ace Ops whle Blake plays support, Weiss beats Marrow alone and then kill steals Harriet from Ruby, all while the song playing is an extended diss track from RWBY to the Ace Ops about how badass they are now, and the commentary itself says the Ace Ops are hard carried by Clover’s Semblance (because you gotta love basically saying four POC were only competent because a white guy led them, and then have them lose because said white guy wasn’t around to carry them!). Great job guys, you really sold it.

And talking of Clover, I feel it worth mentioning Qrow vs Clover vs Tyrian. It’s animation wise near perfect, but unfortunately I do feel it would be remiss to not mention that I feel the writing really has to bend over backwards to justify this fight. A lot of it is stuff I would say in that hypothetical Robyn essay, but I feel Robyn, Qrow and Clover all have to become massive idiots for this specific sequence of events to occur, and for Clover especially every retroactive attempt to explain why he prioritized Qrow over Tyrian just sounds more and more desperate. Between the references to MCU Captain America (a person whose entire arc is about learning when it’s OK to defy bad orders) or the attempt in the commentary to say “Oh Clover thought it would be easier to take out Tyrian alone instead of Qrow,” none of them land and just further drive home how much the plot had to stretch and reach to get that moment of Tyrian killing Clover. I like the fight. But I hate the road the show took to get there.

Some of the misc fights are also weak like ORNJ vs FNKI and elements of the Mantle Grimm battle, but those are the big offenders. Otherwise, again, the fights are largely good. 

7) The soundtrack wasn’t... great

I mean the vocal songs only, don’t crucify me. Trust Love is just lamer Let’s Just Live/Triumph, Celebrate and Let’s Get Real are so boring I thought they were the same song until the OST dropped, Brand New Day is boringly peppy and Jeff’s vocals are dreadful. I completely forgot Touch the Sky until I was checking the tracklist to make sure I didn’t forget any songs. War has good singers but tries to sell the RWBY-Ace Ops bond as way deeper than it was. The lack of a villain song did really sting though, those are always the highlights.

There are good songs. I really like Fear, I feel it encapsulates the themes of the volume well and serves as a good condemnation of Ironwod’s mentality. Until The End is finally the Ruby song I’ve waited for since Red Like Roses 2 and I enjoy that she got a melancholic song, and Hero is easily, hands down, best track of the record and probably best RWBY track, full stop. Caleb killed it, I loved the second verse, opening opera was strong, guitar riffs were a plenty. Stellar work all around for that one.

The OST has great work from Jeff and Alex as usual, but the Jeff and Casey songs are really starting to lose their appeal. Going for a peppy feel this year didn’t help cover the cracks that are beginning to show with RWBY’s vocal songs (especially Jeff’s vocal range), and while a few standouts remain such as Fear and Hero, they are the slim minority in an otherwise very boring vocal tracklist that barely scrapes above Volume 5 for weakest set yet.

8) It wasn’t as funny as it thought it was

Comedy is subjective but man a lot of these jokes didn’t land. RWBY really needs to realize that does work in traditional 2D does not translate into 3D and just comes off as making official reaction GIFs for your Twitter account. Making characters SUDDENY SCREAM LOUDLY is not good banter. Please stop making Nora into Harley Quinn. Marrow was probably the most consistently funny character but that was it. Also I dunno why CRWBY thought Forrest was funny or what the deal was with that FRWBY crap. 

“Honorary” mention to the JNR food scene in Cordially Invited which is genuinely one of the worst scenes in the entire show and I hope whoever animated it has their save files deleted for a game where they were about to beat the final boss. Nothing sums up JNR’s pointlessness in the series more perfectly than this.

C) Conclusion

See what I mean about Volume 7 being frustrating? 

It’s weird that I overal think of Volume 7 as a mid-tier volume. There’s so much here I genuinely adore, with some of the best stuff to do with the show coming out of this season (barring lame, overpriced merch that feels like clothing gacha), but simultaneously the whole thing is let down by outside circumstances that unfortunately are ones the show can’t ever really recover from. Put bluntly, Volume 7 is the most technically proficient season of the show with the best lighting, backdrops, (some of the) character models, etc. CRWBY definitely didn’t slack off this year, but the problem isn't with them. It’s with the writing. A wider reaching problem is just that Miles and Kerry can’t really improve to the level that the series now requires. Eddy and Kiersei’s first season could have gone far worse, but it definitely was notable whenever they took over. Volume 7’s core problems are fourfold: The comedy is terrible and none of the jokes really land, the season focuses on the wrong plots and gives them too much effort, too many episodes are spent building up to new plots only for them to be weakly resolved (especially the Mantle Riot/Grimm attacks that are shoved off-screen), and the character bloat strikes hard here and leaves a lot of the cast feeling like dead weight. CRWBY don’t need more writers. They need more editors willing to tell the team what has to go instead of them hemming and hawing themselves on if they if they can include a plotline. The election never should have gotten past its first draft, there was too much already in this season before adding that.

When this is an unironic shot in your series... you’ve got character bloat issues.

At this point, I think JNR need to go. The show had no idea what to do with them throughout the season, leading to Jaune just being comic relief while Ren and Nora became characters I actively dislike. Renora was the easiest ship in the show to land, and they still managed to blow the engines and ram at least three icebergs just to prove that RWBY can’t romance to save its life. Team RWBY themselves are little better, with Ruby’s feelings about Penny’s return being shelved, Weiss’s victory against Jacques feeling un-earned and undercut by comedy, while Yang and Blake are benched for the volume and become a singular entity with how tied at the hip they are. Maria basically yeeted herself out of the show and I didn’t notice, Pietro is just a death flag, and while the Ace Ops had a good intro, it was undercooked by how they had to play the villain role to give RWBY something to do in the final hours. Cinder and Neo didn’t need to be here. Robyn had one of the worst introductions for a character I’ve ever seen, I never enjoyed her moments and it genuinely feels like she only has a fandom because RWBY’s community are in fact that desperate. 

On the brighter side, Ironwood’s arc is fucking perfect and Jason Rose deserves all the love. Great fight, great song, great design, love the beard, it was a perfect downfall for Volume 7’s true protagonist. Qrow had a fun volume and I loved his dynamic with Clover (I don’t see the ship stuff but that’s more because I’m an IronQrow main so my blinders were on). Clover was also way cooler than I remembered. His fights stood out but the guy’s just really cool at the end of the day, with Chris doing great work as a VA. Oscar even managed to do stuff this year which was a shock and a half, but a welcome shock and a half. I didn’t mention it, but the Ozpin fear monologue is one of my favorite scenes in the entire show and it and the Ironwood/Oscar confrontation in the vault save the finale. And of course, Watts and Tyrian were the MVPs. I don’t have a bad word about either of them, they fucking nailed their roles and I can’t wait to see them again. 

And that’s kind of what I mean when I say Volume 7 flummoxes me. It’s frustrating at times with how it handles seemingly easy tasks and drops the ball. Renora went from “everyone liked that” to wondering how badly Ren’s stuff got butchered for him to be the way he is. RWBY themselves could be almost entirely cut and so little would change, and the fact that the finale basically hinges its entire emotional stakes on Winter, Penny and Oscar is a staggering call. And it really feels like the season was compressed beyond necessity because they decided going in that Volume 7 had to end on Salem’s arrival. There’s two volumes worth of material here, and maybe it would have been best to have broken up these events. Volume 7 does too much in too little time, and RWBY especially suffered from it. But when it works… it’s good. Never close to the highs of Volumes 6 or 3, but there’s genuinely good material here. The fights are mostly getting better with far less missteps than previously, the acting (mostly) continues to improve and it’s obvious that RWBY is a very good looking show at this point. Ironwood’s arc is franchise-wide highs, I loved Clover, and Marrow remains the best boi. But it’s frustrating that despite all the tech advances Volume 7 has made, it still makes such threadbare, rookie writing mistakes in cast management, comedy and character arcs. I’m glad Miles and Kerry finally realized that they needed more writers, but it won’t mean anything if the show just continues to circle the drain on the core mistakes it’s been making since 2013. Volume 7 has good in it. But I can see where it could have been great.

Thanks for reading, stan IronQrow and please get Whitley a therapist.

And for the love of God already make an Ironwood vs Watts shirt! 

[tirorah]

Road to Berlin – The Strike Witches Magnum Opus?

Hello! It’s been a long time. I don’t plan on returning to Tumblr long-term—it simply stole away too much of my time and energy, and I had to do what was best for myself. However, I thought I’d pop in for a very special message.

You see, Strike Witches’ third season, Road to Berlin, has now reached its halfway point. And I need you to watch it.

“Strike Witches?!” I hear you say. “That weird show about girls with no pants that you’re obsessed with for some reason?”

Yes, exactly! Hold on, don’t run away yet! Sit with me for a spell and allow me to explain my boundless love for this silly, emotionally gripping show. Allow me to tell you why it might affect you in the same way, and why Road to Berlin may be the best offering yet.

Welcome to the 501st Joint Fighter Wing

If you’ve heard of this anime, you’ve undoubtedly heard of (or witnessed) its rather infamous claim to fame: a group of teenage soldiers fighting strange creatures in an Alternate Universe World War 2 Europe, flying around with guns and magic-fueled leg machines, and none of them are wearing any decent trousers.

That takes some getting used to, doesn’t it? I’m not going to deny that. But while Strike Witches’ rather peculiar design decisions are inescapable, there’s one thing you need to take into account: Season 1 aired all the way back in 2008. And over those thirteen years, it’s evolved into an experience unlike anything its roots would suggest.

Strike Witches has always been a strange beast. It has a large cast and divides its activities evenly between (light) war drama and slice-of-life shenanigans. And there’s fanservice, lots and lots of it! But the show’s emphasis on risqué camera work, and how that camera work is handled, highly depends on which entry you’re watching.

You see, Strike Witches is strangely ambitious. It could’ve easily taken its bizarre concept and pushed that to its limits, bringing in as much fanservice as possible and playing a simple story in the background as window dressing. But it was never satisfied with just that. Even early on in Season 1, the show deals with heavier themes like pressure, trauma and loss.

And then there are the characters, the undisputed stars of the show. Twelve strong and all with different backgrounds and personal quirks, they may at first seem like TV Tropes come to life. And certainly, sometimes they are. However, as the series progressed, things started to change. Even Season 2, arguably the lightest and silliest of all entries, featured material that built on character development and character growth earned in its predecessor.

With the movie and a trio of OVAs to round out the cast a bit more, the stage was set for Road to Berlin.

The Difficult Road Ahead

When this season was first announced back in 2018, two things stood out to me. First of all, the key visual and promotional video released along with the announcement were much more similar in style to the movies and the OVAs, featuring serious-looking characters and stormy clouds. Secondly, for the first time in Strike Witches history, an entry received a subtitle. Yes, the OVAs were named Operation Victory Arrow, but that was merely wordplay to spell out “OVA.” It wasn’t wholly serious.

Road to Berlin, however, is deadly serious.

Let’s start with an overall theme. The vaunted 501st Joint Fighter Wing has had some major victories, but much of the continent is still under occupation by the Neuroi. The Hive over Berlin is the Wing’s new target, but the journey there is fraught with obstacles. Plans are thwarted and delayed by Neuroi more powerful and far craftier than their 2008 counterparts.

And as the opening song tells us: “We all have flaws.” The Road to Berlin isn’t an entirely literal road; it’s also a metaphorical one. The push to Berlin is their hardest battle yet. Victory can only be achieved if the characters face and overcome their weaknesses. But they’re not alone.

Friendship Is Power

As the characters have long since been established, there’s greater room for growth not just in one character, but also in how that character interacts with others. Road to Berlin chose the best possible route and decided to emphasize character dynamics. Episodes don’t focus on a single character anymore; they focus on relationships, and those relationships are at their peak here.

There’s a newfound maturity to the writing in Road to Berlin, a gentle touch that allows the characters to breathe and be more than their foremost traits. You get a sense that the characters have grown from their experiences; they feel different, more well-rounded, but they still behave exactly as they should. This is difficult to get right, and while I’m sure there might be a few eyebrow-raising moments here and there, the overall result is a cast that continues to improve every week.

Chekhov’s Gun

Underpinning the character work is a highly intriguing execution. Road to Berlin delivers subtle setups and satisfying payoffs in every episode. The pacing is also seriously tight. No moment is left unused, every opportunity for additional development is taken. Even the script itself doesn’t like to waste time; it explains things here and there, but it rightly assumes you know who the characters are and what everything means, so it doesn’t bother with many unnecessary lines.

On top of all that, this season is reaching new heights in confidence and sheer audacity, and it uses that to deliver something truly special. There are interactions here that I never could’ve imagined, twists that genuinely caught me off-guard, moments where I had to sit back and digest what I’d just witnessed.

Not a single episode has been predictable thus far; I’ve had more surprises than I can count. In fact, before I started watching I made a bingo card on a whim, filling it with trends and running gags I’d spotted over the course of the series. Some of those bingo spaces have already been proven wrong, and others are in question. Road to Berlin has done such a spectacular job at simultaneously defying and exceeding my expectations that I honestly have no idea where this journey will take me.

The Fault in Our Stars

Okay, hold up, stop the hype train! I admit, I’m a massive sucker for Strike Witches. One could say this somewhat clouds my judgement. Shocking, I know. So, to make this enthusiastic recommendation fairer, let’s dig into something that I hope to see an improvement on.

There is some terrible imbalance in screen time going on here. I know I said earlier that the cast is great, and it is amazing, but some characters have definitely been favored over others. Yoshika is the main character, of course, so it’s not unreasonable for her to have a large role. Similarly, characters like Minna, Gertrud and Shirley have more experience and higher ranks than the others, which means they have an easier time fitting into scenes.

So, who’s gotten the short end of the stick?

Let’s start with Lynne. She hasn’t had as much of a presence as I’d hoped. The primary reason for this is Shizuka, who’s taken up the role of newbie to the squadron and is often paired with Yoshika because they’re working together. As each episode focuses on the relationships between a select few characters at a time, the others are often relegated to minor roles, and poor Lynne hasn’t had an episode to highlight her yet. I’m sure her moment will come eventually.

I don’t know if the same thing applies to Minna. She’s mostly stuck behind her desk again, it seems, and while she’s definitely had some scenes, her role as Wing Commander hasn’t allowed her as much wiggle room as some of the others. What I want to see from Minna is more time to be a nurturing mom to her girls. The thing is, I’m not sure how they’d accomplish a Minna-centric episode. I suppose they could pair her up with Mio, but even then, I’m uncertain where to take her. It seems redundant to have her be worried out of her mind over Mio again, and she seems to be keeping it together pretty well so far anyway.

In a trend so merciless it’s almost comical, Sanya and Eila seem forever doomed to the peanut gallery. They started out with few lines and have pretty much remained in the background since. Of course, a big factor to it all is their role as the night patrol, which naturally separates their activities from everyone else’s. It’s my current prediction that their relationship is next in line to be showcased. The quality of that episode will likely hinge on how their personalities are tuned, but there’s potential for something great.

And most shocking of all, Mio—She Who Has Practiced Plot Armor Ten Thousand Times—has had the most infinitesimal role of all. I’m of two minds on this. It appears that Road to Berlin has realized that having Mio fly into battle without a shield or Striker Unit is silly, and this is good. On the other hand, Mio is an iconic and beloved character. She deserves some screen time as long as she doesn’t overshadow the others. For now, she seems to be relegated to strategizing and logistics, although I have a hunch that a way to circumvent her newfound vulnerability has already been set up. Time will tell if this ends up being utilized.

Journey’s End

In closing, Road to Berlin highlights the best of what Strike Witches has to offer. It’s striding boldly forward, eager to dazzle us with its animation and audio, grinning as it challenges our preconceptions about where its characters can go and what they can do.

The path to this greatness can be tough. Watching Strike Witches means accepting a number of strange concepts, which can give quite a few viewers a rough start with the series. However, if you made it all the way here and haven’t given Strike Witches a try yet, I sincerely implore you to make the attempt. If you allow the characters to sweep you off your feet, then Road to Berlin could be the apex of a most satisfying viewing experience.

Especially if its second half is as impressive as the first. I, personally, have high hopes. There’s no sky this show can’t conquer.

[alipeeps]

New tag game: Post pictures of your first ever (fictional/celeb) crush to the latest one and tag five others to continue the game

Thanks to @minmoyu for tagging me and ooof, are you sure you’re ready for this?!! :D I have been around/in fandom for a loooooong time and at first I thought, okay, no way I can list all my crushes, there have been SO many and we’ll be here all day but then as I started compiling a list I found I was having fun reminiscing and decided, what the heck, yeah, let’s do em all... or at least all I can remember! :D

There have absolutely for sure been other more minor crushes and passing fancies along the way, but these are the big ones that I remember (and that, in more recent years, I can track by going through my posted fanfics on AO3 and even *shudder* FFNET and seeing which shows I was into enough to want to write fic about the characters).

[Quick note: with rare exceptions, for actors I am listing them by the character they played rather than just the actor. Whilst there are actors that I like in multiple roles (and conversely, characters who on paper I would normally be into but are played by actors who do nothing for me, and hence the character generally does nothing for me either), for the most part it is the character I really have the crush on.]

I’m going to put this under a readmore cos it has gotten ridiculously long:

So... without further ado:

1. MORTEN HARKET from a-ha - OKay so, dating myself badly here but... I had the *biggest* crush on Morten Harket when I was a teenager. Pretty much the entirety of my side of the bedroom I shared with my sister was covered in posters of a-ha, and Morten in particular. I even had a heart-shaped Morten Harket pillow! :D I loved a-ha’s music (still do!) and I wanted to go see them in concert when I was 14 but my parents wouldn’t let me (*sob*). I did finally get to see them in concert in the early 2000s and they were BRILLIANT live (and Morten was still very very pretty)! 

2. RICHARD DEAN ANDERSON as MACGYVER - MacGyver is the first tv character I remember being really into and having a crush on, to the extent that I would record episodes of the show off the tv (onto VHS tape - yes, I am *that* old!) so that I could rewatch them (especially the ones where he got hurt - yeah, I was a whumper even then! :D)

3. KEIFER SUTHERLAND - One of my rare exceptions. I think I first saw him in Lost Boys (and loved him in that film) but it was his role as Doc Scurlock in Young Guns that really made me fall for both the character and him. I definitely remember seeking out any and all films he was in and buying any magazine he was interviewed in (and knowing far more facts about him than was probably healthy! :D) and even drawing a fanart portrait of him. :)

4. KYLE MACLACHLAN as SPECIAL AGENT DALE COOPER - I remember hearing about Twin Peaks before it started airing in the UK and it sounded so different and interesting... I watched it from the very first episode and very quickly developed a crush on Coop.  

5. BRENT SPINER as DATA - I think ST: TNG had been airing for a while before I stumbled across it but I quickly became hooked and Data was my favourite character right from the start. I definitely remember at one point buying an (unofficial) episode guide book so that I could look up which episodes were good Data-focused ones (especially ones where he got hurt! :D) so I could go out and buy the videos that had those episodes on (at the time the show was available to buy on VHS-tape with 2 episodes on each tape).

6. DAVID DUCHOVNY as FOX MULDER - Another show that I heard the buzz about and started watching right from the start and, like so many others, I immediately developed a crush on the snarky, enigmatic, troubled FBI agent with the weird name. The X-Files was the first show I ever tried writing (one, never-finished) fanfic for.

7. PAUL GROSS as BENTON FRASER - Man, Due South was such a good show! It was so quirky and clever and funny and Benton Fraser, with his huge heart and his serious demeanour and his gorgeous blue eyes, was just so darn attractive! He also got whumped a fair bit too! :D Due South was also the show that introduced me to the music of Sarah McLachlan (I was enough of a fan that I bought the show soundtrack on CD).

8. HUGH LAURIE as DR GREGORY HOUSE - This was a bit of an odd one for me because I had grown up knowing Hugh Laurie solely as a comedian/comic actor, known mostly for playing buffoons and genial idiots. And suddenly here he was with stubble, an American accent, and a limp, and he was hawt AF! :D It caused quite the feedback loop in my brain for a while which pretty much went “Wow, House is hot.... but it’s Hugh Laurie... but he’s hot... but it’s HUGH LAURIE!!1!”

I *loved* House (the first few seasons, at least) and oof a character with persistent pain (and a self-destructive streak a mile wide!) was a whumper’s dream. House was the first show for which I wrote - and published online - completed fanfics.

8. JOE FLANIGAN as JOHN SHEPPARD - Stargate Atlantis was my first proper online fandom, the first show I prolifically and repeatedly wrote fanfic for, and the first time I ever met in person an actor I was a big fan of (and while the show was still airing, to boot!). It was also my first introduction to the online community of whumpers! A bunch of us from the Shep Whump thread on Gateworld heard that Joe was going to be at a convention in London and we decided to book hotel rooms and meet up and go to the convention together and it was AWESOME! I can still remember seeing Joe *in person* for the first time and just,,,, struggling to believe he was actually here, in person, in front of me! He was super super lovely and humble too and took time to chat to everyone at the signing table and I clearly remember my brain just pretty much fritzing out during the photo session and being intensely aware of the sensation of Joe’s hand on my shoulder....

It was also super lovely to meet fellow fans, and online friends, in person for the first time and we had so much fun, and it kickstarted me going to lots of other conventions, including specific Stargate/SGA ones where I got to know lots of other lovely fans and online friends. I’ve met Joe about 4 or 5 times in total now and he’s been lovely every time.

9. PAUL BLACKTHORNE as HARRY DRESDEN - Gosh I loved the shortlived tv adaptation of The Dresden Files. I loved the fantasy aspect, the stories, the humour, and I especially loved Harry Dresden and how often he got whumped! :D 

10. DAVID TENNANT as THE 10TH DOCTOR - I had watched the Christopher Ecclestone revival of Doctor Who and enjoyed it well enough but I can clearly remember watching David Tennant’s first episode as The Doctor - on Christmas Day, at my brother-in-law’s house - and being aware, as I watched it that... ooookay, yes, I’m in trouble here... I like him... I like him a lot... :D I mean, I’m sure the fact that he got whumped so thoroughly in his very first episode had nothing to do with how quickly I fell for him... right? :)

11. ALEX O’LAUGHLIN as MICK ST JOHN - Another show that ended far too soon and just as it was getting *seriously* good. But also a prime example of my point about having a crush on the character not the actor. I looooooved Alex as Mick St John... and yet in Hawaii 5.0 he pretty much does nothing for me (the character is too stoic and the whump often too unrealistically glossed over). Anyway, in Moonlight he was my favourite kind of character - angsty, brooding, dangerous AF when he needed to be... and essentially immortal so you could whump the heck out of him and he’d recover so you could whump him again! :D

12. SIMON BAKER as PATRICK JANE - There is so much to love about Patrick Jane... his smarts, his sass, his angst... and Simon is a rare “against type” blonde crush for me (you may have noticed by now that most of my crushes follow a similar physical aesthetic - tall, slim/wiry, and dark-haired) and again here I think my crush is almost all to do with the character rather than the actor.

12. BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH as SHERLOCK HOLMES - I’m almost ashamed to admit it, given the clusterfuck that both the show and its fandom became, but in the earlier seasons I had quite the crush on Benedict’s Sherlock (and okay, a little bit on Benedict himself - I did definitely enjoy some of his other roles too). It helps that I was already a huge fan of the Sherlock Holmes character (I’ve read all the stories and novels multiple times and was a big fan of the Granada adaptation starring Jeremy Brett - whose Holmes would definitely count as one of my more minor/passing crushes) already. Benedict is another crush that I have met in person, at a (actually, the first!) Sherlock convention and he was lovely in person - very genuine, very articulate and thoughtful.

13. TOM MISON as ICHABOD CRANE - I was excited for Sleepy Hollow as soon as I heard about it and I was SUCH a fan for the first couple of seasons (before TPTB completely destroyed it and it inevitably got cancelled (I didn’t even watch the last season and a half)) and Tom’s Ichabod (and his amazing chemistry with Nicole’s Abbie) was a large part of why. I also quickly became a big fan of Tom himself as he came across as so witty and self-deprecating and *fun* in all the behind the scenes/convention clips etc. I was lucky enough to also meet Tom at a convention and he genuinely is that witty and charming and lovely.

14. TOM WISDOM as ARCHANGEL MICHAEL - I think Dominion was possibly the first show that I got sucked into by seeing whumpy gifsets on tumblr! :D It was such a great show and also to date the most immersive, welcoming, cast-and-crew-interactive fandom I have ever been in. The cast and crew regularly live-tweeted the episodes, and interacted with fans on Twitter, and it was SO much fun. And Tom’s Michael was my favourite character right from the start - seemingly aloof but so much going on under the surface... and some really nice whump, especially in season 2! I was heartbroken when it was cancelled after only 2 seasons (and just as the plot was getting *really* interesting).

15. OLIVER JACKSON-COHEN as LUCAS - I was hooked on Emerald City right from the first episode. It was visually stunning, so atmospheric, and really intruiging. I love love loved Adria Arjona’s Dorothy (ngl, I had a bit of a crush on her too) and she and Lucas together were just... *chef’s kiss*. I mean... what an introduction to a character... she finds him crucified, bleeding, his wrists tied with barbed wire, and amnesiac.... and the whump only gets better and better from there on in! Like the entire first two episodes are just... Lucas whump! :D And his devotion to her... Emerald City was honestly the first show where I really got into a ship. I was *invested* in Dorcas, dammit! Aaaand sadly another excellent show that never made it past its first season.

16. JASON RALPH as QUENTIN COLDWATER - Another show that I watched right from the start, was heavily invested in.... and that the writers absolutely tanked and destroyed in later seasons. *cries* Quentin was such a brilliant viewpoint character for the show and I loved his awkwardness, and his angst, and his enthusiasm, and his adorable floppy hair... and how often he got whumped! 

17. COLIN MORGAN - I fell for Colin in Merlin (which I stumbled upon late, long after it had finished airing, and hence was able to binge-watch the entire 5 seasons!) and liked him enough to seek out his other works, such as The Fall, and Humans, and The Living and the Dead, and he was brilliant (and very pretty) in all of them... and his characters also seem to get whumped quite a lot! :D 

18. MATT LANTER as WYATT LOGAN - Wyatt was another of my favourite archetypes... absolutely badass and competent... but also tortured and angsty and capable of intense devotion. Another show that I watched because of whumpy gifs on tumblr and the second ever show where I actually got invested in a ship - Lyatt all the way, baby!! :D - aaaaaand yet another show cancelled before its time.

19. NOCTIS LUCIS CAELUM from FINAL FANTASY XV - my very first video game crush! I was recommended to play FFXV by fellow whumpers on the whumpshire discord because it was whumpy... and they were not wrong and I loved the game and I absolutely adored Noctis. FFXV is one of very very VERY few video games that I have actually played right through to the end. And possibly the only video game that has ever affected me to such an extent... I became so invested in the characters and their world and I actually found the last couple of chapters really hard to play because it was actually upsetting me emotionally. I had to take a break for a couple of weeks before I could go back and finish it!

20. CONNOR from DETROIT BECOME HUMAN - and from there I jumped straight into another video game crush! DBH was another game recommended to me for its whump potential and I, and many others, immediately fell in love with the quirky, sassy, self-sacrificing (if you play the game right!) “android sent by Cyberlife”. The game itself is really good too... although, I have tried to play through all the different endings to the story but have never yet managed to make myself play the machine Connor storyline.... I want to complete all the story branches... but I also just want Hank and Connor to be friends and to be happy! :D

21. ZHU YILONG - Ahhh... the beginning of the asian drama arc of my fandom life! I first came across Zhu Yilong after getting sucked into watching Guardian because of pretty (and whumpy) gifs on tumblr... and I’ve never looked back. He is one of the rare entries where I am pretty much guaranteed to like him in pretty much anything he does and my crush extends beyond Shen Wei, or his other characters, and into reblogging his fashion shoot photos, and keeping up with news of his work in general. He’s just... so darn pretty! And also so... blur! :D And the behind the scenes stuff and interviews of him with Bai Yu, during the Guardian era, just made me fall for him all the more. He’s also ridiculously talented - not only a fantastic actor, but a really good singer (I love his singing voice), he plays guitar and piano, and he can paint too!!

He’s also pretty much what made me start learning Chinese... because after Guardian I went seeking his other dramas to watch... only to find that many of them are only partially, or not at all, subbed. So I thought... why not try learning Chinese and then I’ll be able to watch his other shows? :D

21. JI CHANG WOOK - My first kdrama crush, and what a good one to start with! Healer was the first drama I ever watched and can you blame me for falling for JCW... especially when I followed up Healer with The K2?! I’ve liked him in pretty much everything I’ve watched him in. Although I do wish he would go back to doing more action-based shows as he is sooo good at them... but he seems to prefer the romcom genre these days, which is something I am nottt always a fan of tbh.

22. JAKE HSU as MENG SHAO FEI - Yet another show that I got sucked into by tumblr - and also one with a great, fun fandom through which I met lots of lovely people who I still follow/am mutuals with to this day. I just *adored* Jake’s character in History and I also loved the ship - Tang Fan and Meng Shaofei were awesome and adorable together and I was totally invested in both the ship and the gangster/cop/what happened years ago story happening alongside the ship. And Jake is just all kinds of cute.

23. XIAO ZHAN - Aaaand we are pretty much up to current day now... where The Untamed took over my life in the summer of 2019 and has yet to let me go. Xiao Zhan is another disgustingly talented human being - a fantastic singer and a really good actor, and also an artist - and he also just comes across as a genuinely sweet and charming person, and a very thoughful and earnest one too. And lbr he is ridiculously pretty, and his smile is just pure sunshine. 

24. LEE DONG WOOK as LEE YEON - The most recent entry to the charts.... a Korean actor I was aware of but whose work I hadn’t watched and whose looks didn’t particularly seem to grab me... until I watched Tale of the Nine Tailed and fell head over heels for Lee Yeon (and daaayum does red hair suit LDW!!) and very quickly began to find LDW’s looks very appealing (and oh my, does Lee Yeon whump well!!). And yes, I have now started watching Goblin. :D

Phew! Aaaand we are done! I’ll admit, I did think of a few more as I was compiling this list but I decided to categorise them as more “minor” crushes and not include them... otherwise we really could be here all day!!

I’m going to tag: @sarah-yyy​, @arlothia​, @howdydowdy​, @thepromiseweheldforlife​ and @the-wandering-whumper​!

[duhragonball]

Battle Tendency Liveblog: JJBA Ch. 94-98

This is the first part of the “Joseph vs. Wammu” arc. 

Is it “Whammu” or “Wammu”?    I just looked it up and you drop the “h” I guess.

Here’s some background on the mansion Kars has been using as a base.    I get the impression that it’s a real building in St. Moritz, Switzerland, which leads me to imagine Hirohiko Araki visiting Switzerland in the 80′s and being inspired by the sights.    Then again, I’m not even sure this is a real building.

Messina’s injured and Caesar’s dead, so it’s down to just Joseph and Lisa.  They want to track down Wammu before he heals up from the Caesar fight, but instead they run into some new asshole named “Wired Beck.”   I always assumed he was named after the Beck who did the song “Loser” in the 90′s, but no, it was Jeff Beck, who made the album “Wired”.   This led me to wonder what the other Beck’s first name is, and it turns out that is his first name.  His full name is “Beck David Hansen”. 

It’s been like... 28 days?  Since The Pillar Men spared Joseph in Rome, and while he and Caesar were training, the Pillar Men have also been busy creating vampires with the Stone Mask.  Wired Beck was a fugitive murderer before they got ahold of him. 

Joseph is all set to fight the guy, but Lisa steps in and kills him instead, doing one of those awesome “I killed you so fast that you don’t even know what hit you” attacks.   Joseph is amazed and somewhat surprised by her fighting skills, which I don’t understand because he’s been training under her for three weeks.   Like, Beck didn’t take Lisa seriously either, but he just met the lady, so I get that.  

And when they finally find Wammu, he praises Lisa Lisa for noticing that there’s a lot of other people in the room with them.   But he still adds “-for a woman!” to his assessment.   You’d think a 12,000 year old Pillar Man, who thinks his kind is superior to humans, would rise above this sort of sexism.   Or maybe I’ve got it backwards, and it’s exactly because he’s a 12,000 year old supremacist that Wammu’s attitude is so backward.

Anyway, Kars is here too, and so are like a hundred vampires.   Like Wired Beck, they’re all loyal minions of Kars and Wammu, just hanging off the ceiling and waiting for orders.   Joseph and Lisa could kill a few vampires without any trouble, as we’ve just seen, but this is just too many.   They’re trapped and they know it.   

To Joseph’s credit, he tries to set up a string to trap all of them at once, but there’s too many eyes watching.   Wammu asks Kars to let him fight Joseph one-on-one, but Kars is done with that shit.  He just wants the Red Stone of Aja, and he sees no reason to wait around.   But then Lisa tells him that she has the Stone in a secret location, and if she or Joseph don’t check in with it by a prearranged time, a bomb will go off to destroy it.  It’s a bluff, and Kars knows it’s a bluff, but he’s too obsessed with the Stone to take the risk.  

There’s a lot of shots of Lisa Lisa acting cool in this part of the story, probably because we’re running out of other characters.    I preferred the anime Lisa Lisa to the manga design, because I liked how she looks like the cover art to Duran Duran’s Rio “album”.   Compared to that, the manga Lisa looks a bit... understated.   But I’ve come to appreciate that understated look.   Joseph uses his boisterous personality to help draw attention away from his tricks.    But while he’s making a scene, Lisa Lisa just adopts this stone cold poker face and dares anyone to call her bet.  She knows how badly Kars wants the stone, and she knows that Kars understands how badly she wants to keep it from him.  Why should she be bluffing about this?   Leaving the stone in such a situation sounds like a smart play.   Kars thinks she’s just being desperate, except she doesn’t look desperate, does she?

Lisa proposes a wager to break the standoff: She and Joseph will fight Kars and Wammu for control of the Red Stone of Aja.  Nice and simple.   Kars accepts, not so much because he accepts her bomb story, but because it gives them a chance to avenge Esidisi.    He asks Wammu to chose a battleground, then sends Joseph to fetch the Stone while they keep Lisa as a hostage.

Wammu’s choice is a place called “Skeleton Heel Stone”.   If I understand him correctly, it was something like a Swiss answer to Stonehenge, but later on it became a gladiatorial arena.

Joseph heads back to St. Moritz to get the stone, and carries Messina back with him.  Okay, so about Messina.   Wammu lopped off his arm outside the mansion, but when Caesar entered the mansion to chase after Wammu, he found Messina lying inside, like someone had carried him in.  So how did that happen?  I can only guess Messina brought himself indoors, but that doesn’t sound like something he would do, since he knew the mansion was enemy ground.

Back at the hotel, Joseph finds the Red Stone of Aja in Lisa’s luggage, but he also discovers an old photo from 1889.   There’s Speedwagon, his grandmother Erina Joestar, and... Straizo?   Holding a baby?!    Of course, anyone who knows Phantom Blood knows that this photo represents the all the survivors from the Part 1 cast.   The baby is the same one Erina rescued before Jonathan sank the ship to stop Dio.   But Joseph has no idea about any of that.   He had heard of Straizo before their fight in New York, but he didn’t know much.

Here’s a nice shot of Skeleton Heel Stone.    It’s supposed to be near the foot of Piz Bernina, along the Italian/Swiss border.  

Joseph arrives with the Stone, and holds up a match to it to demonstrate it’s amplification powers.   Satisfied that it’s the genuine article, Kars agrees to proceed with their contest.

In the meantime, Lisa deduces that Joseph saw the photo in her suitcase, and explains that she was the baby in the photo.  Erina saved her from the sinking ship, but since she was pregnant with Joseph’s father, she entrusted Lisa’s care to Straizo.  That’s how she learned the Ripple and came into possession of the Red Stone of Aja.  Joseph is more confused that Lisa looks as young as she does when she must be fifty years old.

And once again, Joseph finds himself empathizing with others.   He had always seen Lisa Lisa as a cold, hardnosed instructor, but now he’s imagining how difficult Straizo’s betrayal must have been for her.  

Never mind that shit!  Here come vampire horses!   Joseph asks the same thing we’re all wondering: What the Fuck?   It’s actually quite simple, really.  To prepare for this event, the Pillar Men used the Stone Masks on some horses.   The vampire goons can barely control them.

What I want to know is where Kars found all these silly Roman soldier uniforms for all of these guys.   Like I said before, it’s been about a month since they woke up in Rome, but I get the feeling that all Kars did was find a new home and dress up his new vampire henchmen in silly clothes.   

The idea is that Wammu will be fighting Joseph in an old-fashioned chariot race, but Joseph thinks the use of vampire horses is an unfair advantage for Wammu.   But they explain that the reins will conduct Hamon, so Joseph should be able to control them with a light Ripple.   O... kay?  Lisa Lisa verifies this, but it still seems kind of goofy.  

Kars orders the battle to begin with the moon appears out of the clouds, but Joseph seems more interested in clearing his chariot wheels.   That makes Lisa nervous, until...

... the race begins and Wammu’s chariot gets stuck.    While everyone else was watching the moon, Joseph was tossing crap in front of Wammu’s chariot to slow him down.   

Look at this big tricky himbo, he’s great.

So the way this works is that there’s a pillar on the racetrack, and there’ll be a weapon hanging from it for the riders to take.   Joseph wants to get a head start so he can have his choice of weapon.    This is because one of them is a big old warhammer, and he’s worried about what Wammu could do with such a thing if he got his hands on it.    However, if Joseph could cover it in oil, he could charge it with Hamon and really give Wammu a hard time.  

And Joseph pulls it off!   He nearly loses his grip on the thing, but it catches on the ring on his finger.   Incidentally, this is the antidote ring that Caesar secured for him earlier.   Joseph has decided that he won’t drink the antidote until he’s beaten Wammu, so he’s wearing it on his pinky instead.   So Joseph seems really confident that all he needs is the warhammer to win this thing.    So why is this (Pillar) man smiling?

[anotherhargrovebitch]

slow dancing : b.h

going to prom with billy, and him making the effort to make the night special for you. (thanks to @tearsforhan for the adorable idea!) 1.6k 

Standing outside of your house you can see the impatience rising in your parents' expressions. “He won’t be much longer, Daddy.” You try to please your father and ease his frown, but he merely huffs in response. 

You turn back and head inside of your house and walk up the stairs, making sure he can hear your heels against the wooden floorboards as you near the bathroom.

As you lift your knuckles up to knock on the door, you listen to him singing to himself. The smell of the cologne you got him for this birthday mixed with smoke is one you could live off. You simply lower your knuckles, any form of pent up aggression having eased away as you silently admire through the door. 

Hearing Billy this relaxed was a rarity that you treasured. He was in his own world, most likely admiring his own reflection as he smoked a cigarette. But you didn’t mind, you were silently thankful he was making the effort knowing that this was going to make you happy.

Tonight was the winter formal. It was that night you dreamt about attending once you were old enough. You grew up discussing dresses and colour schemes with all of your friends. And slowly but surely you watched as they all got boyfriends and girlfriends whom they promised to take. But you remained on your own, wondering if the dream you’d imagined would ever be fulfiled.

Everything changed when Billy arrived in Hawkins, making the seemingly dull town into something more interesting, exciting even. He was the person you were secretly waiting for but you would never admit that to him, it would only feed his ego far too much for your liking. 

When you finally gave in to his pleads after months of his gaze following your every move, you learnt that he was trying to be a decent guy. It wasn’t an easy process for either of you, but once Billy’s hard exterior was softened you discovered someone who truly wanted to be loved.

“Baby?” You speak up, listening to Billy shuffle inside of the bathroom before he reaches for the door, peering his head throw with a small smirk. 

His eyes refuse to move from yours, wanting your dress to remain a surprise to him. When Billy agreed to go to the Winter formal with you, he was weirdly strict about seeing your outfit. Never before had Billy attended any kind of school dance, and he always heard Max telling Susan that the boy should never see the girls dress. Something about that stuck with him, and he was adamant that he wouldn’t let that happen. 

“What’s up, princess?” He questions, rolling his tongue over his bottom lip as he watches you sigh quietly. “Am I running late?” 

You nod in response to his question. “Like twenty minutes, Billy.” You tell him, glancing back down the stairs as your front door remains open, the winter chill rising through the house.

Billy tuts to himself. “What’s another five alone with you?” He jokes and watches as you roll your eyes. 

“Come on, Baby. Just, just finish up my parents are downstairs.” You lean in closer, whispering your response. 

Disappointment briefly crosses Billy’s face but is short-lived as you lean closer and kiss him softly. With a gentle push, Billy is forced back into the bathroom as you close the door for him. 

*

“He’s coming, sweetie.” Your Mum ushers for you to move aside as your Dad moves into position with his camera. 

Billy walks out of your house in a full tux, something no one ever anticipated seeing him in. “How’d I look?” Billy turns to your Mum with a genuine smile, having appreciated her efforts since you both started dating. He wasn’t willing to warm up to anyone beside you, but your Mother was so caring it reminded Billy of what he lost, what he silently longed for. 

“You look handsome as ever, Billy.” She beamed with pride as she motioned for you to come out from around the corner of the house.

The sound of your heels against the floor causes Billy’s ears to perk up as you keep your head down, desperately trying to not fall. 

Turning his gaze, Billy could feel his breath haltering in his throat which was a very rare occurrence. But if it were to happen in response to anyone, it would always be you. 

Suppressing the urge to whistle, Billy wore a bright smile as you lifted your eyes up to see him. You wore a knee-length dress which flattered your body but kept you well enough covered to please your parents. It was the colour of ivy, something Billy knew suited you well and silently hoped you wore the lacy set underneath he loved. 

“Hey,” You say with a small smile as you stand in front of him. “you look good in a tux.” The words leave your lips with a slight laugh as you lift your hands up to straighten his tie, glancing up to see his eyes fixated on you.

“You, you look beautiful.” Billy stutters over his words, something that never ever happens to Billy Hargrove. 

Smiling down at your feet, you struggle to contain your excitement over this. The fact that Billy was seriously coming to the Winter formal to make you happy. “Thank you, Billy.” You tell him quietly, listening as your parent's motion for you to turn and face the camera.

“Okay, move closer, kids!” Your Father speaks up as your Mum holds the camera and looks through with a bright smile. 

Billy rests his arm around your waist, ensuring it remains at your waist and not dipping further- especially in front of your Father. 

You both smile brightly and then look to one another, hearing your Mum awe at the sight. “God, you kids are just so cute together.” She sighs to herself before bringing you into a hug. “Have fun tonight, I’ll see you later.” She says to both of you before she hugs Billy, something he’s still adjusting to. 

As walk over to his Camaro, Billy rushes ahead to open your door for you. “Tonight I’ll be a true gent, princess. Just you wait.” Billy tells you quietly with a smile as he reaches into his jacket for a cigarette before he climbs into his side of the car, pulling away from your house. 

During the drive toward the school, you can’t help but shake your leg. “I don’t know why I’m nervous.” You say with a heavy sigh, running your fingers through your hair. 

Glancing over to you, Billy rests his hand on your thigh, throwing his cigarette out of the window. “Cause you’ve never had a real experience at this kinda dance, Y/n.” Billy tells you, having listened to the conversations your friends had one lunch when you were off. They described all the things that these kinda dances are to be, the expectations lined up. “But I promise, it’ll be better than how you’re expecting.” He squeezes your thigh lightly before moving his hand back to the wheel as you approach the parking lot.

Three guys stand in suit jackets lining the parking lot. Billy slows down as one approaches his car and rolls down the window. “Would you like us to park your car for you?” He asks without meeting Billy’s eyes, the trembles in his voice evident as the other two keep a fair distance away.

Part of you expects Billy to bite back, but he shakes his head. “No thanks, kid. I can’t have you ruining my car on a night like tonight.” He mutters before driving off, finding a spot on his own as you sit in shocked silence. “What?” He asks, looking over to see you.

“I half expected you to murder the kid for suggesting he drive your car,” You say with a small huff and Billy chuckles to himself.

“I told you, princess. Tonight’s going to be perfect.” 

*

Walking in, hand in hand Billy can see your eyes lighting up at the scene. 

To Billy, it was a few cheap decorations in an attempt to make the place look more festive. The attempt was lousy, but if it meant seeing you smile he’d accept it for what it is. 

You tug on his hand as photographs are being taken. “Come on, Billy!” You say with an angelic laugh, something that’ll forever be music to his ears. 

The pair of you pose for a few photographs. “Make sure you get the lighting good for us, I want my girl looking like an angel here,” Billy comments as Jonathan simply nods. 

Once photographs have been taken, you both move over to the punch. You pour some out for the pair of you before Billy stands in front of you, watching as you lift your dress up and take out a flask. 

“Sneaky devil,” He chuckles as you shush him, pouring alcohol into his drink. 

“Gotta make the night easier surrounded by middle schoolers.” You tell him as you both sip your drinks, quickly downing them before you move to the dance floor. 

As you both dance, Billy moves closer. His arms move further down as he ignores the glares from teachers and other students alike because he feels happy. He listens as you faintly hum along to the music being played, and can see you looking around at the kids. 

You can’t budge the smile from your face as you see Max and Lucas together, how happy Max truly looks with him. “Hey, Billy?” You speak up as Billy raises an eyebrow. “Thank you for tonight.” 

Billy leans down, kissing you softly. “Anything for you, Y/n. And the night is young.” He whispers as you lean your head against his chest, continuing to slow dance through the night in his arms. 

[starscheme]

Only You

Warning: This Chapter contains explicit sex scenes. Read at your own risk.

Chapter Ten: I’m Yours, You’re Mine

The morning light peeked through the window of the hotel suite, gleaming down onto Steven's face and forcing his eyes open. Though Steven wasn't sure what time it was, he was sure it was too soon to be awake. Concentrating for a moment, Steven shape shifted his right arm, stretching it out to reach the button that controlled the blinds. Once they were down far enough to block the sun from the bed, he brought his arm back and sighed happily. Even if he had been woken earlier than he would have liked, Steven couldn't keep the smile from his face. Especially when he turned on his side to see Spinel sleeping peacefully beside him. His smile widened as he reached over and brushed a bit of hair from her face.

Her pigtails had long since come undone, so her hair was a bit messy, but she looked so charming like this. Everything that happened last night replayed in his head and while his cheeks burned, he couldn't keep the smile from his face. After making love for the first time, they didn't stop until both were completely exhausted. Admittedly, Steven worried he might have gone a little overboard as he looked over the marks he had made along Spinel’s neck and shoulders. The marks even trailed down to the swell of her breast, and though the blanket covered her from there, he knew there were more. He just couldn't get enough of her last night and honestly, he didn't think it would ever be enough, but that was just fine with him.

Though he didn't want to disturb Spinel, Steven had an overwhelming urge to wrap his arms around her. Gently, he slipped one arm under her back and slowly pulled her close to rest in his embrace. She only stirred for a moment, before falling swiftly back into a blissful slumber.

As he held her slender frame against his chest, Steven felt so happy that he was certain his heart would burst at any moment. Yesterday didn't go as he had planned at all, but he couldn't care less anymore. There wasn't a single thing that could spoil his mood now. After months of feeling that everything was trying to keep them apart, Steven finally felt like he could just be in love with her without worry.

"...Steven...?" Spinel mumbled drowsily as she opened her eyes.

"Ah-I'm sorry," Steven began in a hushed voice. "I didn't mean to wake you."

"You didn't..." Spinel replied with a tired smile, snuggling herself even further into his embrace. She could feel his heartbeat against her cheek and her gem began to glow. This sound was the most precious thing on earth to her. Nothing could make her happier. Why couldn't she wake to this sweet sound every day?

"How are you feeling," Steven asked, genuinely concerned that he may have overdone it last night.

Spinel blushed; secretly glad that he couldn't see her face. "Just...a little sore," she admitted quietly. The more she remembered about last night, the more Spinel never wanted Steven to let her go. As long as she stayed in his embrace, he wouldn't see how red her face had surely become.

"Sorry about that," Steven replied with an apologetic smile. "I...couldn't help myself. But to be fair, I don't remember you complaining at the time. In fact, I recall several pleas from you to keep going."

A small, embarrassed squeak escaped Spinel’s lips as she buried her face against his chest even further. Y-you don't have to remind me..." she whimpered.

"You don't...regret it, do you?"

With a short gasp, Spinel pushed against his chest to face him seriously. "Of course not," she insisted, almost offended by the question. "I was so happy last night. I'm still happy. Aren't you happy?"

"I've never been happier," replied Steven with a broad smile, even more elated to know that Spinel wasn't rethinking her choice last night.

"Does this mean I'm really yours now?" Asked Spinel.

"You know that you're your own Gem," Steven began as he sat up in bed, "but if you want to be mine...than I'll meet you halfway and be yours too. Belonging to each other isn't a bad deal, right?"

Spinel giggled lightly, not the least bit surprised by his answer. Steven was always so sweet. She grabbed the blanket and held it to cover her chest once she sat up as well. "As long as you're mine," she agreed cheerfully.

Now that she felt more awake, Spinel caught sight of the marks Steven had made down towards her chest. She blushed once again and quickly lifted the blanket to examine the rest of her body. The pink Gem gasped lightly, noting the marks along her inner thighs and hips. "Steven!" She exclaimed in a flustered groan.

"Sorry," he replied quickly, not wanting to upset her, but secretly proud of each one. "Want me to heal them?" Steven teased, leaning over to plant gentle kisses against her shoulder.

"W-we don't want Pearl to get mad again," Spinel replied as a shiver ran up her back while Steven kissed her skin.

"Hmmm...How about we don't mention Pearl in bed?" Steven hummed against her skin, gently brushing her hair out of the way with his hand so he could plant a kiss at the nape of her neck.

Spinel's breath hitched quietly, a little surprised that Steven was being so affectionate. After last night, she assumed he would be exhausted. Though, speaking of last night, there was something she meant to ask Steven. "I didn't have time to ask last night, but what were those things you kept putting on?"

"You mean the condoms," asked Steven, his lips brushing against her skin as he spoke. "Those are something I have to wear to make sure you don't get pregnant. I don't want to take any chances."

Her face reddened at once. Pregnant? Like Rose had been with Steven? That meant that she might have Steven’s child one day? "So-so you have to wear those...every time?"

"Just to be safe," he replied, pulling Spinel into his lap so they could get more comfortable.

Spinel was a bit alarmed to be taken from the cover of the blankets, now settled completely bare in Steven's lap. She could already feel his dick growing against her ass, forcing Spinel to release a soft, shuddered breath. "How many of those did you bring?"

"Definitely not enough," whispered Steven as he ran his tongue along the side of her neck and slid his left hand down her stomach until he reached her slit, running his fingers slowly over her folds.

Spinel tensed lightly, feeling that familiar heat from last night wash over her, causing her breath to quicken as Steven pulled her even closer, her back flush against his chest. His hardening member was rubbing firmly against the plump flesh of her ass and Spinel could feel the warmth of Steven's fevered breaths at the back of her neck.

Honestly, Steven had intended to let Spinel rest after last night, but he just couldn't help himself. He justified it by reminding himself that Gems hardly needed rest anyway. "You're already wet," teased Steven as he kissed her shoulder, slipping two fingers into her slicked folds.

"Hahn," gasped Spinel, nearly bringing her hand to cover her mouth before Steven used his own free hand to stop her from doing so.

"I like hearing your voice," he reminded Spinel. A big part of what he loved about last night was hearing Spinel say his name in such a prurient way.

Spinel felt like she was going crazy. It was just like last night. She was embarrassed and surprised by just how much she liked having Steven toy with her body. Of course she was already wet; it didn't seem to take much more than his voice to send sweet shivers down her spine. The soft light of her Gem indicated just how happy she was in this moment, which Steven took as his green light for 'anything goes.'

Letting out a small gasp of surprise when Steven began fingering her more vigorously, the wet sounds of her sex slicking from his hand as he pleased her. "St-Steven...!" Spinel exclaimed in a lustful moan, her back arching and pushing her ass to grind gently against his now fully erect cock.

Stars, did he love hearing that, so much so that he had nearly forgotten about the condoms. In the heat of the moment, Steven reached his free hand to her front, massaging her breast in his palm while Spinel writhed in his lap. His dick throbbed against her ass with each move she made and Steven found that he couldn't hold back any further. "Lay forward," he breathed, helping to guide her body down, even as his fingers continued to thrust into her, forcing more and more of her juices to slip against his hand.

"Ah—hn! Steven! ...d-" Spinel found that it was difficult to get a proper word out, especially when her body had been moved. Her chest was now pressed against the blankets with her ass up in the air, giving Steven a clear view of her glistening pink folds once he pulled his fingers out and got to his knees. "W-don't stop," she pleaded breathlessly, feeling a terrible ache when he took his fingers from inside of her.

"As if I could," replied Steven, gripping her ass with his hands, his fingers dimpling into her soft flesh as he leaned forward to run his tongue over her wet sex, slowly lapping up the sweet taste of her.

Spinel gripped the blanket beneath her, trying to keep her hips still as Steven ran his warm tongue over her sex, but unable to keep herself quiet. While her fevered moans began to fill the room, another sound came into play, startling Spinel a bit.

It was Steven's cellphone. It had begun to ring from the bag that lay beside the bed and with just a glance, Spinel could see that it was Connie who was attempting to get a hold of Steven. However, Steven didn't seem to hear it, or perhaps was actively ignoring the sound while he indulged himself with Spinel.

"St-Steven...the phone," breathed Spinel, wondering if Steven would stop once he saw who it was.

Steven kissed the supple flesh of Spinel's ass before he pulled away and straightened his back, rubbing his now aching cock at her entrance slowly. "Do you really want me to answer it?" Steven asked through haggard breath, reaching for the nightstand to grab yet another condom, just grateful that he didn’t use them all last night. He had to thank the stars for even remembering to do so.

"It's Connie," answered Spinel, as if testing him. Though she knew there was little point in being jealous anymore, she couldn't help it. Connie was the one Steven loved first. He'd touched her first. He kissed her first. She hated thinking about it even now.

Steven only paused for a second after slipping on the condom, mostly just surprised that Spinel would announce that, as if expecting him to stop and answer the phone. Did she really think he had the willpower to take a break right now? "I thought we just went over this," he began, pushing his tip slowly between her folds and into her waiting pussy. "Who do I belong to?" He asked before gripping her ass tight and ramming the remaining length of his dick into her.

Spinel's whole body was nearly pushed forward and her inner walls tightened around his shaft as her hips tensed, "AHH! M-ME!" The pink Gem gasped out in reply.

"And who do you belong to?" He purred, refusing to move until he heard her answer, though it required great restraint on his part since she was gripping him so tightly.

Spinel wriggled her ass bit, horribly disappointed that he had stopped just as he began. "Y-you," she answered, as if pleading for him to continue.

"Who?" Asked Steven once again, reaching forward with one hand to cup her breast and pull her back up, his dick throbbing inside of her as her back pressed against his chest once more, his other hand snaking down her stomach once again. Only stopping when his fingers reached her clit, rubbing the small nub in slow circles.

"Y-you! I belong to—-to you!" Spinel cried out, her whole body trembling. She turned her head and reached back to place her hand at the back of his head, forcing Steven to meet her lips.

Finally satisfied with her answer, Steven allowed himself to move, pushing up into her as she parted his lips with her tongue. He was more certain than ever before that he could never get enough of this. She was gripping him so tightly that he could hardly pull his member back to ram up into her again. While Spinel’s moans melted into the kiss, their tongues trying to dominate the other, she moved her hips in rhythm with his own. Once again, she felt as though she were losing her mind. The phone was ringing again, but it sounded so distant now as they indulged in one another. The bed was once again creaking beneath them, their heated pants for breath filling the room, drowning all other sound out.

"Spinel...!" Steven grunted feverishly, quickening his pace and moving his lips to hungrily taste her neck. Her juices had slicked his shaft well enough that sliding in and out of her was pure bliss. Each time he moved, he could feel her inner walls pulsing tight against his shaft, as if eager to squeeze everything he had out to fill her up.

Just as Steven relished in hearing his name from her lips, so did Spinel enjoy hearing her own name from him like this. "Sa-say it again..." she pleaded breathlessly, feeling the sweet sensation of pleasure building more and more with each move they made together.

"Spinel..." breathed Steven in lustful obedience, ramming his hips up even harder into her. This forced Spinel to wrap her legs around his waist, stretching them back to keep her body in place.

She no longer cared what lewd sounds came from her body; her mind had gone blank. She whimpered at the back of her throat as Steven groaned against her shoulder with a few more hurried pumps. Each of them feeling the sweet urgency of a coming climax crashing down, their bodies tensing together as if in perfect synch. With one last, rough thrust, his hands holding down her hips, as he released his seed with a shuddered breath. Coupled with Spinel’s orgasm, her inner walls tightening around his shaft and squeezing what he had left into the condom.

The two took a few labored breaths before falling back onto the bed. “How many of those condoms do we have left now…?” Spinel asked, hugging Steven’s arm as she snuggled up against him to catch her breath.

Steven took the used condom off and tossed it into the waste basket beside the bed. “I’m not sure, but we really need more,” he breathed with a blissful, yet tired smile. “After we rest a bit, would you like to go and see the city?  I wanted to take you to see the amusement park.”

“That sounds like fun,” replied Spinel with a delighted smile. They hadn’t been away from beach city long, but she already felt as if a huge weight was lifted from them. No one was trying to lecture them, no one was following them, and they were far away from anyone that might make either of them jealous. This trip was the perfect plan. “Thank you…for planning this for us…” Spinel whispered happily.

Turning a bit, he kissed Spinel’s forehead lightly, “anything to make you happy.”

Just as Spinel opened her mouth to reply, the phone began to ring again. Spinel stretched out her arm to reach for Steven’s bag and felt around until she finally grasped the vibrating phone. Sitting up now, she brought her arm back to herself and stared down at the screen. It was Connie calling again. Why was she so adamant about getting a hold of Steven right now?

“Who is it?” Steven asked with a sigh, half expecting Spinel to simply hand him the phone or answer it herself. However, instead of answering him, the white of Spinel’s eyes became black and she crushed the phone in her hand. In alarm, Steven quickly sat himself up, staring at the broken phone in her closed hand. “…Spinel? Why did you—“

“—you said you’d do anything to make me happy,” she replied with a pleasant smile, her eyes still dark.

[quickspinner]

Hey Gorgeous - Under Your Skin 3

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 |  Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9

A continuation of Hey Gorgeous Part 1| Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Bonus Scene | Now on AO3

It felt like tradition, waiting for him on the stairs. 

Except when he arrived he was on foot, and he looked...really good. Not fancy at all, but his laid-back look suited him, and it was miles better than his work clothes. Marinette’s knees turned to jelly when he looked up at her and smiled a genuine, slow smile. “Hey Gorgeous,” he said, and it sounded different, warmer or softer or just...more. “Ready to go?” 

Marinette smiled and stood up, and Luka’s smile got broader as she came down the steps toward him. He held his hands out as she reached him and, blushing, she put her hands in his. 

“You’re a vision,” he said in that warm voice of his, and she ducked her head a little. She wasn’t that dressed up either, in jeans and the lace edging of her camisole peeking out of her pink pullover. But the admiration in his face was so genuine she couldn’t scold him. “I like your hair,” he added, glancing up at her twin buns. “Cute.” 

“Th-thanks,” she smiled. “I like yours too, n-now that I can sssee it.” She dared to reach up and play with a blue strand near his temple. “You l-look nice.” She let her hand brush his shoulder lightly as it fell and saw him swallow. 

“Well I didn’t have to do much to improve on the usual,” Luka chuckled. “You haven’t exactly been seeing me at my best.”

“Y-yet, h-h-here I am,” she pointed out shyly, and there were those eyes she told Alya about.

“Yes you are,” was all he said, but the way he said it, like he almost couldn’t believe it himself, was enough to stir up the butterflies in her stomach. He offered her his arm. 

Marinette put her hand in the crook of his elbow and let him guide her to the sidewalk.

“So—“ Luka began, but Marinette held up a hand. “What do you—“

“Oh n-no,” Marinette said, raising up a hand. “Wwwe t-talked all about mme last t-time. I want to know about y-you.”

“Oh,” Luka said, looking taken aback. “Oh, sure. Ah…”

“Y-you sssaid you had a sssister,” Marinette prompted. “Wwwhat about the r-rest of your family?”

“Oh, it’s just me, Jules--Juleka, my sister, I mean, and my mom. Actually apparently you’ve met Juleka. She said she modeled for a runway show you were working on.” Luka pulled out his phone and showed her the lock screen picture of he and Juleka together. “That’s her.” 

“Oh, I r-remember,” Marinette said with surprise, taking the phone to look closer. “She had sssuch an interesting l-look. R-really n-nice eyes.” She handed it back to him. “Mmmust r-run in the ffamily.” It amused her to see him blush at such a small compliment after all the lines he’d handed her over the past few months. 

“She’s beautiful, I know,” he deflected, pride evident in his tone. “A little short on confidence sometimes, but she’s working on that and she’s come so far. She has too much fun roasting her big brother though. We’re only a couple of years apart but she’s always been the baby to me.” He unlocked the phone and pulled up another photo. “That’s my mom.”

“Oh,” Marinette took the phone from him again. “Wow, she’s got ssstyle. She’s the kind of p-person I would ssssit down and draw if I saw her on the sstreet.” Realizing she had just snatched his phone away, she handed it back to him, blushing. “Sssorry.” 

“Don’t be,” he smiled, taking the phone back and slipping it back into his pocket. “I like seeing you excited. But yeah, my mom’s kind of an interesting person. Not the easiest person to have for a mom in some ways, but she’s definitely got personality.”

Marinette giggled. “Seems like that runs in the fffamily too.” 

Luka grinned at her and winked. They walked in comfortable silence for a few minutes. 

“So since I’m not allowed to ask any more questions,” he teased, “what else do you want to know?”

“What else d-do you think I shhhould know?” she countered with a playful sideways look. “What makes L-luka--” she paused. “I d-don’t know your last n-name,” she realized. 

Luka chuckled. “It’s Couffaine. Although it’s made up anyway, my mom changed her whole name when she left home. If there was a goddess of rebellious teenagers, it’d be Anarka Couffaine.” 

Marinette giggled. “L-luka C-c-couffaine,” she repeated thoughtfully. “Mine’s D-dupain-Cheng.”

“Marinette Dupain-Cheng,” he repeated likewise. “Well, maybe it’s a little belated, but—I’m very glad to meet you.”

She squeezed his arm where she held it. “Mmme too. Sso what m-makes L-Luka C-couffaine t-tick?”

“Besides your eyes?” he grinned at her. “Music, mostly. My mother’s a musician and she had a guitar in my hands before I could walk. I’ve always expressed myself better with music than words.” 

“Th-th-that surprises me,” Marinette giggled. “Y-you nnnever seem at a loss for w-words.” 

“Oh, Gorgeous, it comes so easy when I’m with you,” he sighed, putting one hand to his chest dramatically, and then he dropped it and smiled at her. “Partly because have a week to think about it. And it makes you smile. I get the feeling maybe not enough people have been telling you how amazing you are, so I’m happy to pick up the slack.” He shook his head. “That day with the black dress, though. I think I forgot my own name for a minute.”

Marinette blushed. “Ssso w-w-what k-kind of mmmusic?”

“Listening or playing? I mean, all kinds, really,” Luka shrugged. “I’ll listen to almost anything, and I’ll play anything that catches my ear. I have a soft spot for folk music from all kinds of different places. I always seem to gravitate back to rock though. I play a few different instruments, including just about every kind of guitar there is, but the electric guitar speaks to me the most. I’ve been playing in bands since I was oh, about twelve or thirteen? Been writing music as long as I can remember.”

“Y-y-you write mmusic?” Marinette gasped, impressed. “Th-th-that’s sssoo c-cool.” 

Luka nudged her with a grin. “You don’t even know if I’m any good.”

“Are you?” 

Luka coughed, turning a little pink. “Maybe. Some people think so.”

“Mmmhmm,” Marinette quirked an eyebrow at him. 

“Including the school scholarship committee,” he admitted, lifting his free hand to rub the back of his neck. 

“I d-didn’t expect f-false mmodesty from you,” she teased.

“I don’t like to brag,” he said, looking uncomfortable. “I don’t want to jinx anything. Some days I still can’t believe anyone thinks my work is worth listening too. Sometimes I feel like if I tell the wrong person, they’ll realize I don’t actually have any talent and it’ll all come crumbling down.”

“I c-can relate,” Marinette sighed. “Mmmy b-best ffriend is always h-harping on mmme not to d-downplay mmmy accomplishments.” She bit her lip and admitted, “I’ve designed for Jagged St-st-stone.”

Luka stopped in his tracks. “Seriously?”

Marinette’s cheeks warmed and she wished she hadn’t said anything. But she had, so… “Yeah. Just a c-couple of s-small things.” He was still staring at her and for some reason she felt compelled to add, “And an album c-cover.”

“No way, which one?” Luka demanded. “I have all his albums.”

“R-rock Giant.”

“The one with the sticker? Man that was so fresh and original.” Luka cleared his throat. “I um...I sold one of my compositions to a producer friend of mine. It ended up being the base melody for one of Clara Nightingale’s singles.” 

“W-wow, that’s amazing!”

They exchanged a look of mingled embarrassment and admiration, and Marinette laughed. “W-w-we’re a p-pair, aren’t w-w-we.”

“I’d sure as hell like to be,” Luka said fervently, and then he bit his lip and his expression clearly showed he hadn’t meant to say that. 

Marinette knew her face was red, but she just bumped him lightly with her hip. “I th-think that’s a c-c-conversation that should wait a few mmmore dates.”

“Right. Sorry. Speaking of which--I was kind of hoping if things go okay tonight, maybe you’d like to come see my band play this weekend? You don’t have to answer now, just...think about it?” 

“I w-will,” she smiled up at him. “I’d l-like to c-come if I c-can.” 

Luka beamed back at her, and they started walking again. 

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 |  Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22

A continuation of Hey Gorgeous Part 1| Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Bonus Scene | Now on AO3

[fandumbstuff]

The Marvel Cinematic Universe, Ranked Best to Worst.

Why watch a movie when you can experience it? And that’s what the MCU demands you do. These films are less about settling in to watch a movie. It’s about getting together your family, your friends and making an entire event of them. Marvel Studios has forever changed cinema going, and boy am I eager to get back to them. So with that, let me break down the franchise and my take on the best and worst it has to offer.

1. Iron Man 3 Directed by Shane Black

Iron Man 3 still holds up as one of the MCU’s strongest screenplays. It’s their first (and one of their only) real character study of a superhero, and the psychology behind being one. Tony Stark suffers from PTSD and struggles to understand his relationship with Iron Man. He is forced to contend with human issues and find what it is that truly makes him a hero. It’s also a movie chock full of incredible action set pieces- the Air Force One scene still holding up as one of my favourites- and wickedly funny dialogue. It continues to be my most satisfying re-watch out of the MCU.

2. Black Panther Directed by Ryan Coogler

Marvel’s best villain, best score, best production design, and best picture candidate. It’s the movie that forced Hollywood to take them seriously. Ryan Coogler showed the world that he can perform even within a studio system that had largely been criticised for being too overbearing. The world may have always known that Black Panther existed, but Coogler showed us why he matters so much. The story is the MCU’s most inspiring yet. Killmonger forces not just T'Challa, but every audience member to consider his motivations seriously. It shows humanity that heroism doesn’t come from superficial acts, but from overcoming our own flaws and learning hard lessons from our history.

3. Thor: Ragnarok Directed by Taika Waititi

In letting Taika Waititi have free reign over Ragnarok, Marvel is given their most unique film yet. The movie feels very much like Waititi’s own vision, chock full of his signature wit and charm. And its within this vision that we finally see Chris Hemsworth come into his own as Thor. Finally at ease, he’s allowed to be funny, and absurd, and play the emotional scenes without any melodrama. Waititi really makes the character dynamics in this film memorable, introducing us to the Grandmaster and Valkyrie, and fleshing out Banner and Loki. It’s a cast that charms us enough to consider staying with the MCU and seeing where they go.

4. Captain America: The Winter Soldier Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo

Chris Evans finally comes into his own as Captain America, as Winter Soldier gives him a captivating character arc to work through. Steve Rogers is placed in a conflict that makes him question his own motivations. The morality that he stands for is in direct opposition to the authority he serves, leaving him to question what it means to be Captain America. We also see him learn from his relationships with the supporting cast- with a franchise best portrayal of Nick Fury and Black Widow and a particularly strong introduction of Falcon. The Russos create something truly remarkable by taking a character that has been criticized for being too traditional and show him learn and change significantly. But in addition to all this they direct what is easily the MCU’s best pure action movie yet, showcasing the franchise’s best car chase (Fury vs Cops) and its best fight scene (THAT knife scene).

5. Avengers: Endgame Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo

Stunning, momentous and joyous, Endgame is the theatrical experience that Marvel has spent over 10 years honing to perfection. Just one year after Infinity War, the MCU brings together their iconic, colossal cast for their grandest, most ambitious adventure yet. And while Endgame is chock-full of some stunning action sequences and gleeful references, it carries a genuine heart to it. These heroes struggle with PTSD from the events of Infinity War. We see them at their very lowest, and watch their desperation mount and grow to determination. This epic struggle is what has made superheroes so compelling for so many years. By breaking these characters down, the Russos show us just what makes them great. We’ve witnessed writers, directors and certainly the actors take these characters on journeys that have seemed at times thrilling, at time out of touch, but in Endgame, they’re at their very best. The moments of reprieve in the action where we simply sit with them to listen in on their banter are the best. Building to it’s inevitably emotional ending, Endgame winds up being one of the most wholly cathartic experience I have had with a film.

6. Guardians of the Galaxy Directed by James Gunn

At the time of it’s release, Guardians was the franchise’s best-looking movie yet, and it still holds up. The slick space opera designs set to the now iconic soundtrack made the first Guardians an aesthetic marvel. It’s the substance that comes with this that makes the movie one of the MCU’s best. The ragtag group are misfits who find their purpose by banding together, and while the sequel may have drawn this out to nauseating lengths, the first movie made it succinctly effective. It found the right balance of humour and sentiment, endearing us to a cast of characters that seemed too obscure to be popular- and guaran-damn-teeing that Marvel can do whatever the hell it pleases moving forward.

7. Avengers: Infinity War Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo

To handle ten years of storytelling and world building and bring it to such a satisfying crescendo is commendable. The Russo brothers handle each character well- each new introduction is a pleasing moment of familiarity and excitement to the fans that have stuck with this franchise. It’s a perfect match to the comic book format. And ultimately Infinity War is as good as any major comic book event. A chance to see our favourite characters interact with each other with conceivable motivations, and face a threat that is alarmingly critical. Its in this respect that Infinity War outshines its predecessors. For the first time, the Avengers face real emotional consequences if they fail. The Russo’s pull no punches to make this clear and despite a fair amount of signature MCU levity, Infinity War winds up being their darkest film yet.

8. The Avengers Directed by Joss Whedon

There’s no questioning the milestone achievement that The Avengers accomplished. As a superhero ensemble, it never once feels congested or jarring-something that most blockbusters consistently suffer from. Instead the protagonists are given clear goals, and their obstacles make real sense. Their hostility towards each other stems from their innate character flaws that they need to address to face the true antagonist in Loki. It highlights what Marvel does so well- offer us adventures that don’t tie up all their loose ends but rather leave them dangling to set up more ambitious stories.

9. Spiderman: Homecoming Directed by Jon Watts

I’ve long considered Spider-Man an uninteresting superhero, so it is highly commendable that Homecoming manages to change that. We skip the origin story and meet a Peter Parker that is inexperienced and has a lot of growing up to do. He contends with Michael Keaton’s Vulture- a villain that is simultaneously charismatic, intimidating, and relatable. Supported by what is probably the best supporting cast in any MCU film. Martin Starr, Hannibal Burress, Zendaya, Jacob Batalon, Jon Favreau and Marisa Tomei flesh out Spidey’s own universe of Queens- wholly believable and charming.

10. Captain America: Civil War Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo

In all respects, this should have been the second Avengers film. The Russo brothers do what Joss Whedon couldn’t. They show these characters change and clarify their motivations based on the 8 years that we’ve been watching them. They introduce new characters like Spider-Man and Black Panther in seamless fashion. They provide exciting action set pieces and compelling moments of drama. The payoff at the end truly shows us how much of a battering these heroes take- emotionally and physically. We see their vulnerability more clearly than any other MCU film, forcing us to address the question that they can’t keep doing this forever.

11. Captain Marvel Directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck

The biggest issue that this movie suffers from is that it seems very episodic to a larger MCU. Its hard to get around this though, with it’s release date being less than 2 months away from Endgame. It feels like there are some key world building details that had to be gotten across. Had this not been the case, perhaps they could have explored Carol’s character a bit more. She does seem interesting, and Brie Larson does an expectedly great job, but it seems like we’re only getting a taste of a much larger character study. From what we see though, it is refreshing to see a female character who simply goes out and kicks ass without ever being sexualised, even in terms of costume design. The highlight of the film though, is undoubtedly Samuel L. Jackson’s incredible portrayal of a young Nick Fury, through the most magical of magic tricks in VFX.

12. Iron Man Directed by Jon Favreau

While I do feel like the movie has lost some of it’s lustre since it’s release, there’s no denying that Jon Favreau achieved something remarkable with Iron Man. Forever considered one of Marvel’s B-characters, Favreau brings Tony Stark into a modern era and instantly relevant setting. This is obviously due in large part to his gamble of casting the debilitated Robert Downey Jr. in the lead. Downey Jr. pays off in spades, revitalising his career and sadly typecasting himself forever with a roguishly charming performance.

13. Doctor Strange Directed Scott Derrickson

Doctor Strange is proof of the amazing world-building prowess the MCU has. They introduce key elements to the universe that seem incredibly important, without ever overwhelming the story. Benedict Cumberbatch puts on his best American accent yet and capably sells Stephen Strange as one of the MCU’s more level-headed heroes. The rich mythos of Doctor Strange fits immediately into the greater MCU framework while telling it’s own compelling narrative culminating in my favourite climax to any MCU film- “Dormammu, I’ve come to bargain.”

14. Spider-Man: Far From Home Directed by Jon Watts

The real standout from this film is Jake Gyllenhaal with his pitch-perfect performance as Quentin Beck/Mysterio. He threads that line of MCU humour extremely well, but also manages to come off as wholly and realistically threatening when he needs to. Far From Home had the tough task of following the monumental Endgame,  but it fulfills its purpose of truly setting the tone for the future. A lot rests on Peter Parker’s shoulders and Far From Home shows him having to deal with it responsibly, maturing and growing to fill a greater role in the MCU. 

15. Ant-Man Directed by Peyton Reed

If you ignore the fact that this movie was almost directed by Edgar Wright and how amazing that could have been, Ant-Man still delivers as a very entertaining movie and one of the franchises strongest origin stories. Scott Lang is instantly the MCU’s most relatable character- not a god, not a spy, just a thief with no powers and no resources (initially). And there is no one who could have played this character better than Paul Rudd. Bringing his signature charm and impeccable comedic timing to the franchise is a breath of fresh air and a brand-new dynamic. 

16. Captain America: The First Avenger Directed by Joe Johnston

Ultimately my biggest problem with Captain America has always been his origin story, so I have some natural issues with this film. It is also bogged down with some cliched romantic drama between Steve and Peggy which takes away from its otherwise engrossing plot. Hugo Weaving proves to be an effective Red Skull, showing us a deeply disturbing quest for power. The movie excels in its WW2 setting, laying down real consequences and motives behind Captain America’s heroism. It takes a few movies for Chris Evans to settle into the role, but this is a strong start.

17. Iron Man 2. Directed by Jon Favreau

Iron Man 2 consistently threads the line of poignant storytelling. Ivan Vanko’s vengeful motives, Tony Stark’s descent into alcoholism and the nature of war profiteering. It’s especially unfortunate then that the movie gets bogged down with a persistent need for levity. More than any other film in MCU, the humour in Iron Man 2 seems particularly cumbersome- taking away from what would surely be strong performances from Mickey Rourke and Sam Rockwell. As a result, we’re left with villains who don’t seem to be a threat at all- mere caricatures for Iron Man to dispatch without ever really pondering their motivations.

18. Ant-Man and the Wasp Directed by Peyton Reed

My initial reaction to this movie was pretty positive, but given time I realise it’s totally forgettable. While it does feature some integral world building to the larger MCU, there’s very little done to explore some of their characters, particularly the Pym/van Dynes. There are still a lot of great aspects, including some clever action set pieces that explore Ant-Man’s powers more. Scott’s relationship with Cassie is expanded on and Paul Rudd and Abby Ryder Fortson do a great job selling this, making it seem truly endearing without ever being corny. Also Randall Park is in it and he might be the greatest actor of his generation.

19. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 Directed by James Gunn

More of the same, but not nearly as fresh is what Guardians 2 serves up. It rehashes a lot of its predecessors joke formulas, action montages and even the basic emotional tone. It’s hard for any of this to seem anything other than repetitive and I’m left wanting these characters to go on real adventures rather than wallow in their own angst. Without offering any new developments to these characters and a rather uninteresting plot, the movie is another totally dismissible filler episode in the MCU.

20. Thor Directed by Kenneth Branagh

It’s really baffling that with as big of a name as Kenneth Branagh attached to it, Thor winds up being one of the MCU’s most poorly directed films. Poorly constructed shots framed on a dutch tilt and coloured with a gaudy high contrast palette make this movie a downright eyesore. It’s especially unfortunate because it’s got some great moments of storytelling in it. While the first three quarters of the movie seem tedious, it pays off in the last 30 minutes- exposing a complex family drama that drives most of the film. While Chris Hemsworth took a few films to polish his acting chops, Tom Hiddleston and Anthony Hopkins provide strong performances to really sell their characters and make us care.

21. The Incredible Hulk Directed by Louis Leterrier

This movie has easily become the sore thumb in Marvel’s formula. It seems entirely different from the rest of the movies. This is due in large part I believe to make it similar to the original TV series. None of this is a good thing. The movie has a largely meandering plotline, with no sensible character development. Bruce Banner goes back and forth between being tortured by the Hulk and accepting him. In a world populated by poor villains, Tim Roth’s Abomination might be the worst one. At no point do his motivations make sense or seem clear at all.

22. Avengers: Age of Ultron Directed by Joss Whedon

It seems like Joss Whedon decided to make a sequel to The Avengers without taking into consideration the four other movies that came out after it. Ignoring most of the character development and brushing aside key plot points, Whedon instead tries to explore their team dynamic by sewing seeds of hostility and testing them against a new villain. However, as good as James Spader is, Ultron never feels like a real threat. The real antagonist for the Avengers winds up being themselves, constantly bickering over right and wrong- and while this isn’t necessarily bad, Civil War would do a much better job of this just a year later. This makes Age of Ultron a dispensable entry in the MCU, and Whedon’s extremely poor handling of Natasha and Bruce’s relationship make it an arduous rewatch.

23. Thor: The Dark World Directed by Alan Taylor

The Dark World suffers from some bizarre shifts in tone and horribly forced humour. They reduce Jane Foster and Thor’s relationship to a cliched romantic comedy and then use it to add unnecessary comedy to the family dynamic established in the first Thor. Even the performances seem poor here- as if the actors never truly felt comfortable in their role. They posture and exaggerate to sell a script that offers them very little to work with. With a caricature of an evil villain and a generic McGuffin to chase, The Dark World is everything you could criticize the MCU of, rolled into one movie.

[totalconway]

Drinks at the Pub, ends in short film opportunity...

So a little back story first, I started performing stand up comedy in 2012 and by 2013 I was lucky enough to win the state leg of Australia’s largest open mic competition Triple J RAW Comedy and headed to Melbourne to perform on the ABC.

Following that experience I was given a lot of opportunities to perform support spots purely based on that RAW comedy credit.

One case of this was performing at Rottnest Island for their Rottofest summer comedy which was held every Friday during the summer. Rottnest Island is a hot bed of local and international tourist, and the Island’s Gov’s Tavern where the gig is held would often sell out (120+ People) the crowd was always a mix of high profile people and obnoxious drunks (most of the time both)

On one particular Friday night, I was performing, and not to brag blowing the roof off the joint and in the crowd was none other then the President of my favorite sporting team the Fremantle Dockers Football Club.

At the time, the Fremantle Dockers board was facing backlash from the supporter base because they wanted to move the Dockers training ground from their spiritual home of Fremantle Oval to a state of the art, purpose built training facility in Cockburn (Yes Cock Burn) which is about a 30 minute drive up the road.

So after the gig on Rottnest Island, I get introduced to the president of the Dockers with the intro line “Hey Sean, tell him what you think of the Cockburn move” and you can see his look go from chilled and calm to “I seriously got to deal with this shit on my holiday”. I just told him “I’m pumped for it” and I was, its been a good move for the Dockers and I started reeling off the benefits for the move etc etc. We hung out had a few beers and the whole night I was spun out that I was hanging with the president of the Dockers.

I went back to work on Monday telling people I got to hang out with the President of the Dockers, with a bit of fake bravado swagger to jokingly let them know I only hang with A-Listers now! After a couple of days I didn’t think anything of it and went back to gigging and working.

A few months down the track I get an email from the booker of Rottofest Summer comedy asking if I’d be keen to Star in a short film for the Dockers. Its not paid but if the film is one of three winners of the competition I’d receive one of the tickets to the USA which was up for grabs. Honestly, they had me at “Star in Dockers short film”. 

Apparently the opportunity was between myself and a Perth duo called Henry & Aaron. Henry & Aaron are film makers/comic actors who pretty much went viral on youtube with every film they made (Talking millions and millions of views) and they lost out to my RAW comedy set that had about 12 views purely because I had a few too many beers with the president of the Dockers. 

When I got the call to go meet them about the project I was incredibly nervous. I had a whole pitch prepared about why I was the best candidate for the job “I fucking bleed purple” because I was still thinking I had to audition for the film but essentially I had already been cast in the film. Their only concern was whether or not I could fit in the costume because I’m a big fat dude they had to see if I would be able to squeeze into it. The whole time I was terrified of ripping it because it’s a $3-$4K costume.

Once the costume fit (just) it was straight to work. It was a great project to work on because they gave me a lot of creative control of my character, and I really wanted to portray a David Brent (The Office) like character, like a really fat black sheep in a white herd.

So we started filming in September of 2013, just after the Dockers had beaten Geelong in an away game in the first week of the finals. So the Dockers had a weeks break before they played Sydney in Fremantle’s first home preliminary final in two weeks time. This was a huge moment for the club because If we win this it will be the first Grand Final the Dockers have ever been in. 

The first day of shooting was super intimidating, not because I was meeting some of my football idols but because the night before the first day of shooting I watched a documentary called Catching Hell about the Chicago Cubs fan Steve Bartman who was blamed for the Chicago Cubs not winning a game that would of sent them to the world series. Not the best film to watch when you’re about to work with you’re sporting idols on the eve of the biggest game in the clubs history. To say it made me super paranoid the whole shoot is an understatement, and it didn’t help that the first shot of the day was with the Dockers marquee player Matthew Pavlich. The scene was me jumping on his back, FUCK RIGHT OFF. I’m twice the size of Pavlich and you’re dreaming if you think I’m jumping on his back. If you watch the scene I take the “mark” and I’m nowhere near Pavlich.

It was a great shoot because everything was time sensitive, the players had their other appointments so we literally only had 10 minutes for each shot with the players so we flew through the script. 

I got to meet a lot of the players I was fans of like Ryan Crowley, Nat fyfe, I didn’t get to meet Michael Walters but the scene he’s in, my fat is hanging out of my footy jersey and I did hear him say to David Mundy “That dude looks like a bag of oranges” which was funny, but Ideally I would of preferred he made the joke to me so I could of gained a fan when I busted his balls back, but unfortunately it wasn’t to be.

The last shot of the film was me gate crashing a press conference with Michael Barlow . Barlow did the interview and the CEO at the time did a big speech thanking the media for their support throughout the year and if they wouldn’t mind hanging around for 10 minutes so we could get our last shot. We smashed out the shot in 2 takes, boom we’re finished, I’m told not to tell anyone about the film until it airs the following week, easy enough right.

Wrong, the next day I’m back at work and people are looking at me like I’m the biggest piece of shit in the world, because one of the media outlets had filmed me gate crashing the Michael Barlow press conference, and passed it off like I was genuinely gate crashing the press conference. 

I had to tell people it was for a film which didn’t help the situation because they thought because I do comedy it must have been some Jackass type movie I was doing. It also didn’t help the situation that Radio talk back shows were crucifying me saying how unfunny I was and how big of a dickhead I was for gate crashing the Barlow press conference, but I didn’t care too much because I knew the film was coming out the following week. It didn’t stop my Mum and my sister writing a long scathing letter to the radio station about how they should do their research before they try to shame their baby boy on the radio. Luckily I was able to stop them from sending it out.

The film came out the following week as well as the entries for the other films that we were competing against, the winners would be based on who had the most likes, shares and views. The first film we were up against was by the St Kilda Saints who managed to get Eric Bana to star in their film, it still makes me chuffed to think I starred in a film that went head to head with an Eric Bana film. The second film was by the Melbourne Demons which was a documentary about a child fan who was very sick, third place was us, and the rest of the films were Essendon Bombers which was fucking terrible and a few other teams who I can’t remember.

The film was released the night the Fremantle Dockers played Sydney Swans in a game which would determine who would be playing Hawthorn in the grand final the following week. Literally the clubs biggest game in their history at that point so the game was sold out and 50,000 people got to see me make an ass out of myself and it was humbling how much the Dockers supporters loved it.                     But more importantly the Dockers smashed the Swans and were headed for their first ever Grand Final.

Being the Dockers fan I am, there was no chance in hell we were missing out on seeing the Dockers play in their first Grand Final. I had cousin’s overseas who cut their holiday short to make it back in time for the Grand Final. It was such an amazing experience heading over for the grand final, and thanks to the film I was a bit of a star amongst Dockers supporters. I was flying over with my dad and at the same time One Direction were flying in and all these young preteen girls were waiting for them with signs and screaming for One Direction. I’m chilling with my dad waiting to board our flight and a family of Dockers fans came over and asked for a photo. All of these young preteen girls were looking at me with a confused look on their face wondering who I was and while they were distracted by me, One Direction walked past the crowd of fans with out any of them noticing.

The morning after we arrived in Melbourne we went straight to the Grand Final Parade which is one of the biggest events of the AFL Grand Final week. All the fans line the street to watch the two competing teams drive through the streets of Melbourne and ends with a big speech on the government steps and the captains of each club holding the trophy in front of their screaming fans. When the event finished all the Dockers fans turned to walk away and saw me in the street. Everyone stopped to shake my hand and to get photos, treating me like a full blown celebrity, even a girl who I had a crush on in High school asked me for a photo and I got to experience all this with my family watching. It was a very surreal and amazing experience to say the least.

The next day was the Grand Final, all the Dockers fans met at Federation Square before the game so we could march to the Melbourne Cricket Ground like soldiers marching to war. It was a sight that Melbourne people have never seen by an interstate club, which made me incredibly proud to be a Dockers fan. Being apart of the film, Dockers fans continued to stop and cheer me as we all marched to the MCG. 

When we got to the MCG I was starting to get anxious for the game, my cousins could see me becoming more anxious, which is why they started screaming out "Look it’s the Unsung Docker” every 5 minutes. I had Dockers fans lining up to get a photo with me and then Hawthorn supporters and famous AFL commentators would walk past with a look on their face like “Who the fuck is this guy”

The Dockers ended up losing the Grand Final and we headed to the Dockers after party which felt more like a wake. After the Dockers lost the game I also found out that we also finished fourth in the film competition behind the Essendon Bombers who got the fucking Janoskians to pump out their film amongst their fans and got their views up with comments like “I’m only here because I like the Janoskians” (I’m still bitter about it). In one afternoon I managed to see my favourite team lose the ultimate prize and have my payment for the film pinched from me by some shit head kids, it was a rough way to end what was otherwise a truly amazing experience.

I wasn’t too disappointed though, the film helped me get an acting agent in Sydney which has lead to some amazing acting opportunities. I’ll share some more stories down the track. The Dockers unfortunately haven’t made it to another Grand Final since 2013, but hopefully one day I’m at the right bar at the right time to have a drink with the new president of the Dockers and we can get the wheels moving on The Unsung Docker 2 

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #252

my personal laptop has to be fixed, so therefore i don’t have games to play, so expect plenty of these to pass the time lmao.

Have you ever said something just to see what kind of reaction you’d get? No, not that I remember. Have you ever confronted someone about using too much chat-speak? ??? No??? Have you ever revealed someone’s secret, after promising not to tell? No. Secrets are one thing I'm very serious about respecting. What is one emotion that you experience regularly? STRESS, MOTHERFUCKER. Describe the last major change you made concerning your hairstyle? Lopped it all off, lmao. It's been like, two years now though. Who was the last person to walk out of your life, and why? It feels like my friend Alex. She's kinda just... left me hanging for months. I think she's active online, but not with me, despite reaching out. She's also deleted her b.net account or just removed me from her friends list, idk. Absolutely nothing seems like it would've prompted that, though. Are you less likely to approach people that look/dress a certain way? I was going to say no, but the last person's answer inspired mine to yes; like, I'm not going to go talk to people with some crazy or offensive shit on their shirts, nor am I going to just go walk up to someone covered in blood. Name one embarrassing activity that you take part in? I don't know. Like I say enough I'm VERY self-conscious of revealing I RP, but only because I'm sensitive to how the person will respond. I'm in no way like, ashamed I do it. I'm just terrified of judgment over something "unusual." Ever been told that you can’t understand love due to your age? Not that I remember. I only claimed to "get it" (to my recollection) at a point in mine and Jason's relationship, and I very legitimately would've guffawed at and honestly nearly slapped you if you claimed I "didn't understand" love. What is your favorite Starburst candy flavor? THE PINK ONES. Do you think that you act like yourself while online? I act more like myself online. Have you ever lied about something to get someone to like you? No. Who is the fakest person in your life right now? I don't keep those people in my life. Have you ever laid down in the grass, and made shapes out of the clouds? As a kiddo. When someone’s constantly negative, how do you deal with it? It depends on the person, but ALMOST in all cases, I really really try to support the person as best I can. It may start to bring me a bit down, but I feel I'm just like... hardwired to help those I love. I think it's what my relationship with Jason did, as he left because he couldn't handle my depression anymore, and with how that absolutely and utterly annihilated me, I don't want anyone else to feel that pain. Now, for people I don't have much of a bond with, it's easier for me to say "I'm sorry, but I can't handle this right now," but even then, I prefer to help. Does Christmas make you feel like a kid again? No. I'm really most excited for aunt reasons, lol. Do you have any artistic talent? Some. Would you ever shoplift from a store if you knew you wouldn’t be caught? Absolutely not. When one of your pets dies, how do you react? Usually cry. I've only ever not done so if I hadn't at all formed a bond with the animal. When you go to the movies, where in the theater do you sit? Close to the front, in the middle. When was the last time you lost your appetite? I don’t know. Have you ever neglected to take care of yourself? Er. Quite badly during '16, in the depth of my depression. I'll just say my teeth are kinda yellow because of it. I want to whiten my teeth at some point if I can afford that kind of luxury. The last song/poem/story you wrote - what was it about? In RP, the most recent section being written now is my main protagonists receiving a visit from their allies before getting their asses torn up the next day lmao. After a fight, who apologizes first - you, or the other person? Usually me, but it does depend. If I genuinely feel I didn't do jackshit wrong, no, I'm not apologizing. When you’re feeling creative, what do you do? Write. Do you mind being in your house alone overnight? Not really by now. Done so a number of times. Are there any dreams you remember from childhood? Nightmares, yes, and one very realistic dream. What worries you most about death? Not knowing what happens afterwards. Do you watch really old tv shows or movies from the 1970s or earlier? I love The Munsters, I Love Lucy, The Beverly Hillbillies, and The Addams Family. I'm sure there's more, considering I liked to watch stuff with my mom as a kid. Who’s your celebrity crush(es)? HHHHHHHHHHNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG Ever been to a rave? No. Are you afraid to name the person you talk the most shit about? I don't really do that. Like I'll vent about people occasionally, but "talk shit" seems like the wrong word. I don't like gossiping. Are you a jealous person? Envious, rather, sometimes. I get VERY envious when it comes to photography, but otherwise, I don't feel it much. Who do you text the most out of your friends? Sara is like the only friend I text, lol. What would you do if you saw a complete stranger dealing drugs in public?
 Honestly, call an authority. I don't fuck with that. I'm not watching it happen. How often do you play video games? What are some of your favourites?
 I played World of Warcraft daily until my laptop took a shit. Need to get that fixed. Now I play actual video games very rarely... but mostly just because you can only replay the same ole game so many times before you've had enough of it for like a year. There are a great number of new games I want to play, though. I want a PS4 soooo badly. What are a few things that get on your nerves when it comes to Facebook (or your social networking site of choice)?
 More than anything, posting something that's crying for attention only for the person to be like "ugh I don't wanna talk about it." Then don't fucking post it. What are three things you’ve started to like lately? I feel like I haven't found new interests in a long time... Wait! I do feel The Handmaid's Tale and the Wings of Fire book Sara lent me have revived my love of reading! :') I want to go to the book store when I can and get both the new sequel to THT and the next WoF book. What was the last reason for having butterflies in your stomach?
 *shrug* Do you need a lot of space in relationships, or are you happy to spend a lot of time with your SO?
 I need SOME alone time, but for the most part I love being together. Once we're really close, anyway. What was the last thing you cooked from scratch? Scrambled eggs. Have you ever won anything from those games in arcades?
 Yeah. Funny story, there was this one time my sister won a stuffed duck from a claw machine, and it was the one I wanted after trying many times, and I cried so hard that one of the employees literally got one out for me lmfao. I probably still have it in the attic. When was the last time you went out to a fair?
 Not since right before the breakup. How far is the nearest zoo or wildlife park from your house? Do you go often?
 Like, two hours. We almost never go because of the distance. Are either one of your parents retired? If not, what do they do for a living?
 No. My dad's been a mailman all my life, and Mom is currently on disability because she has cancer and obviously can't work because of chemotherapy and all that. She was a pharmacy tech, though. If you could change one physical trait about yourself, what would it be?
 Can all this weight like vanish please. Have you ever gone out with someone you didn’t like?
 ????? Why would I do that???? Well, I didn't yet like-like Tyler because we hadn't been reunited as friends long enough; dating was kinda like... a dumb way to re-get to know each other? Thank fuck that was only two weeks. Would you ever take a bullet for your significant other? I'm single. Would you ever work at a fast food restaurant?
 No. History shows I can't work with people. Are you good at haunted houses, or do you scream your head off?
 AHHHHHHHHHHH I LOVE!!!!!!!!!!! If you’ve seen it, what did you think of the Twilight movie?
 I never watched them. Have you ever gotten your tongue stuck on a frozen pole?
 No. Are you a cat or a dog person?
 Cat. Does the movie Titanic make you cry?
 Ha ha, yes. I watched it on movie day while at the psych hospital and all of us were lil bitches almost sobbing, lol. Because it's a long movie, it went past our allotted time, but the nurses decided to let us finish it because we were so into it. I do have some good memories from those times... Do you think that fat people should wear skinny jeans? I think people can wear whatever the fuck they want without fear of judgment. Do you prefer game systems like Xbox, or older ones like Super Nintendo? The former. Do you enjoy indie music? Yep! What is the most strange piercing you’ve ever seen? Those ones people were getting on their fingers instead of rings... just huh. What do you do when you’re waiting in line at the grocery store? Look around, I guess. Think. What is your favourite beach to go to? I haven't been to enough to know. Have you ever been to a country club? No. Have you ever seen an animal die in real life? Too many times. Animals have been euthanized in my arms, and a kitten slowly died in my hands once. One of the most heartbreaking things I have ever experienced. Teddy accidentally punctured its lungs or broke ribs, I think, or something like that. I'm pretty sure he was trying to bring it back to its siblings because it wandered off, but he held it too tightly. I was home alone, too. It was fucking awful. Do you live on a Rd, St, Blvd, Ln, Way, or Ave? Road. Do you have naked pictures of someone saved on your phone? No. Would you ever go see an opera? Bitch I played Parasite Eve, I don't trust that shit. But seriously, no, not my scene. Do you own anything John Deere? No. Do you have a push mower or a mower that you ride on? Neither. A friend mows for us; he has the latter. What is the longest amount of time you’ve been stuck in traffic for? No clue. I think during a trip to New York. Would you consider joining the air force, army, etc? No. Who was your first crush and what made them special? This kid named Dylan. I thought he was super cute and cool. What is one thing nobody knows about you because nobody ever cared to ask? I dunno. Who did you idolize growing up? Steve Irwin. Do you believe that we are all here for a reason? What might the reason be? No. Have you ever carved your name or initials into a tree or stone? No. What were your best and worst subjects in school or college? Best: English. Worst: math. Name something you would like to devote more time to seeing or doing. Writing poetry. Drawing. Do you like to get your nails done? No. Do you remember the last movie you saw while on a date? Yeah, IT. Do you like to wear dresses? Hell no with my current body. Do you like any ‘manly’ activities like hunting, fishing, or camping? I find fishing to be fun and relaxing, but because of morals, I can't stomach doing it anymore. What was the name of your first boyfriend? First with the title, Aaron. First *real* boyfriend, Jason. Your first kiss? Jason. Are you still with either of those people from the last 2 questions? No. Have you ever used your bra to hold things like you would a pocket? Ha ha no. I think. What is your longest relationship to date? Three years, 7-8 months. I don't remember if the breakup was in August or September. Who ended the last relationship you were in? It was kinda like... mutual-ish, but moreso her. Have you ever gotten back with an ex? No. Who was your first prom date? Jason. Do you cry during romantic movies? Sometimes. Who was the last person to see you cry? Mom. Have you ever been used? I don't think so romantically, but in other ways, I know I have been. Have you ever felt violated? Yes. Do you like when a guy takes you by surprise and kisses you? Not everyone likes guys, so what an assumption. But anyway, only if we're very serious and have heavy trust in one another. Do you ever leave the house without makeup? Pretty much always. When was the last time someone gave you flowers? Been a few years. What kind of gift can win you over? BITCH buy me something Mark-related and you earn like 20 points. Has anyone ever sung to you? Yes. Do you like massages? Depends on who you are. In almost any case, no. They're awkward. Have you ever been skinny dipping? No. Do you sleep naked? No. Is smoking a turn-off? Yes. Is there a certain tv show you get upset if you miss? No. When was the last time you spent the night at someone else’s house? When I was at Sara's a year or so back. What is one food you always crave? Ice cream. Are you an exercise freak? Hunny- What scares you more, spiders or snakes? Snakes don't scare me, so spooders. Do you expect to be married in the next two years? No. Would you ever get implants? Nah. Have you ever had a crush on a sibling’s friend? No. Have you ever had a crush on a friend’s sibling? No. Are you more of a 'girly girl’ or a 'tomboy’? A tomboy. Have you ever dated someone with a child? No. Are you addicted to texting? No.

[tiesandtea]

Interview with Artmagic from July 2012 for Spindle Magazine

By Amy Lavelle on July 12, 2012. Archived here.

Doors close; windows open etc. One of the many valuable lessons to be learned from the Sound of Music and when Suede’s door closed, another window of shining opportunity opened in the form of Artmagic: the new project and meeting of minds of Richard Oakes and producer, now vocalist, SeanMcGhee (Imogen Heap, Britney Spears et al.). Then yes, Suede’s door reopened, but fear not, that won’t be affecting the duo.

We caught up with them for a chat/‘peak behind the magic,’ if you will.

Full interview under the cut. Teaser:

SEAN: Please don’t call us “indie”. Do we look like skinny 18 year olds? I was never skinny, or young. This policy will continue. RICHARD: Please do call us “indie”. It’s funny to watch Sean’s reaction!

SPINDLE: Before you hear Artmagic’s music, it seems at first like an unlikely pairing; how did you form? What’s the story behind Artmagic? SEAN: I was a big admirer of Richard’s work and was curious that he’d seemingly disappeared when his other band split. Here was this enormously talented guitarist and writer, suddenly off the radar. I must have been in a fearless, bolshy mood, because I just decided I wanted to write with him. A friend of mine was egging me on, and it turned out that he knew Richard’s brother. So I was able to get in contact and arrange to meet up. We wrote our current single, Forever In Negative on the very first day of working together; once that was under our belts, we both knew this wasn’t going to be a one-off. RICHARD: We exchanged show reels via our manager Charlie in late 2007, but we didn’t actually meet until July 2008, and started writing straight away. Not really the traditional way bands form – meeting at art school, sharing a squat etc… But right from the off Artmagic was never going to be a typical rock ‘n’ roll outfit. I think of it as a project, rather than a band, with none of the clichéd behaviour, image or attitude. Sean doesn’t model himself on his influences, and this definitely attracted me to working with him. SPINDLE: Why the name? SEAN: It comes from something film director John Waters said about modern art; he noted how it lets you take seemingly unrelated everyday objects and, by using them in the right way, turn them into something meaningful. Art, he said, is magic, like alchemy – transformative. And I loved that, immediately, because song writing is art. We take disparate fragments and craft them into the whole. I’m not afraid to appear pretentious when I say that. I’m get exasperated by the clichés of rock, so framing what we do in artistic terms suits me much better than relying on tired posturing. RICHARD: Sean chose the name, my input was a shameful zero! My past career has left me with a strong ethic that the only thing that matters is the music; everything else is secondary. It’s easy to spot the bands in the past who have concentrated on name, image and impact first… and then forgotten about the actual music. SPINDLE: Obviously there were a lot of expectations for the band; were you at all apprehensive putting new music out there in the beginning? SEAN: Not at all; the moment we released the I Keep On Walking EP was when Artmagic became real, and I think we were both hungry for that moment. I can’t really imagine what expectations people had, but I hope we confounded them by giving them a moody song cycle about 3 unwillingly intertwined lovers. I’m immensely proud of it, and I think it was a gutsy way to lead off. RICHARD: Releasing your work to the world is always exciting yet daunting, no matter what you believe the expectations to be. I’ve had reviews of my past work that have ranged from glowing to utterly awful, and I’ve learned to take both with a pinch of salt. The most important thing is that people get to hear it; I believe there will always be someone in the world whose life is touched by it, and that’s the whole point. SPINDLE: How have you found the reception so far? SEAN: Gratifying. It’s thrilling, really, that we’ve already got some very passionate fans and it’s very exciting when we do shows and we can see the audience getting it. Obviously some people have had difficulty moving beyond our previous work, and get upset or confused because it doesn’t sound the same, but you can’t please everyone, and I wouldn’t want to anyway. Pleasing ourselves is the first priority, and will remain so. RICHARD: I believe we’ve attracted the kind of people who like music in the same way we do. When talking to someone at a gig you can instantly tell if they’re there for the right reasons, a genuine open minded love of music as an art form, or whether they’re there just to stare at you. People who have the usual prejudices won’t appreciate what we do, and I have no interest in playing to them. SPINDLE: Sean, how was it making the transition from ‘behind the scenes’ as it were to taking the mic and being at the forefront? SEAN: Artmagic happened because we realised that no-one else could sing these songs we were writing – they were too personal. That, and Richard’s support, gave me the confidence to be the man to sing them. Doing so was both the realisation of a long-held ambition and a serious challenge. But that’s a good thing, because anything that’s easy to do is generally not worth doing at all. SPINDLE: Richard, after taking time out of the spotlight following Suede’s split, how was it releasing new music? Is it something you’ve been working on since the break or did you take time away from it all? RICHARD: I did take some time out to move house, but I had been working on a whole load of music, some of which became the backbone for the album, for a couple of years before I met Sean. The intensity of being a Suede member for so many years cast a long shadow over my work, and it took me a lot of soul searching to realise exactly what I wanted to do with my career. The one thing I was certain of was that I didn’t want to simply join another band, or have a new band formed around me. I wanted to just write and write, and when I met Sean, that’s what we concentrated on. I threw a lot of (probably very confused-sounding) music at him, and he was able to pinpoint the underlying emotions and feelings, and turn them into very personal songs. SPINDLE: How does the creative process as Artmagic differ from previous projects for both of you? SEAN: The process is both the same and different. I’ve written with a lot of people over the years and I’m past being tentative; you have to fearlessly throw down your ideas and say, “what about this?” to get a song happening. Truly poor songs get written by the disinterested or uninspired. That is never an issue with Richard because he’s always got something great up his sleeve, and that means I have to respond in kind. That’s not always been the case for me in the past, so I relish it. RICHARD: The biggest difference for me is that Sean invites me to be involved when he writes the melodies, there is no separatism. This was never the case in Suede; almost all co-writing would be done alone, often even by post. It just goes to show how many different ways there are to write a song. We have a few that have come out of spontaneous jamming round at Sean’s, but they’re a world away from the traditional band rehearsal room jamming! Something that rarely works well. SPINDLE: Have you faced any major hurdles so far as a band and if so, what? SEAN: Not really. Any musician who has a career is living a charmed life, and they know it. Never mind the endless whining we hear, saying how hard it is. It should be hard, because that weeds out the faithless. I’m a true believer in Artmagic specifically, and music generally. I crave widespread appreciation for Artmagic, because I think our work deserves it. RICHARD: The only hurdles, the only hoops we’ve had to jump through have been self-imposed, in the writing and recording. We set ourselves a high standard, and despite having no corporations breathing down our necks, it was hard work, but the end result was all the more satisfying. SPINDLE: What’s next?

SEAN: Touring and festivals in July, more touring in September. Our second single Down In The River comes out in October. We’re working hard to give Become The One You Love its due, and once that’s done and dusted we’ll start thinking seriously about album two. We already have some songs in hand, and some very interesting ideas about how to approach the process differently next time around. But I don’t want overthink it; better to run on instinct.

RICHARD: Live appearances in the many different guises of the band, up and down the country. I’m especially looking forward to the album release gig at St Pancras Old Church on 9th July with the whole band. But I can’t wait to start writing again – I believe that is the most important part of our job. Creativity will outlive industry. SPINDLE: Anything else to add? SEAN: Please don’t call us “indie”. Do we look like skinny 18 year olds? I was never skinny, or young. This policy will continue. RICHARD: Please do call us “indie”. It’s funny to watch Sean’s reaction!

[bamby0304]

Her Saviours- Ch.10

Series Masterlist

Summary: During an odd case, the Winchesters came across Y/N, a scared young Omega girl who had been used as a lure for a nest of vampires. After rescuing her from the monsters, John and his sons took her in knowing she was in no state to live among ordinary people. But three Alphas and one Omega is a mixture bound for disaster.

A/N: Thanks for checking the chapter out, @sculptorofbeginnings :)

Warnings: Explicit language. ABO Dynamics. Angst. Smut. Fingering. Dirty talk. Dry humping. Awkward encounter.

Bamby

“Alright, I figure we’d hit Tucumcari by lunch, then head south, hit Bisbee by midnight.” Dean watched Sam as his brother continued to ignore him in the passenger seat. “Sam wears women’s underwear.”

You chuckled from the back seat, looking to Sam as his eyes stayed focused on his PalmPilot.

“I’ve been listenin’,” Sam assured him, “I’m just busy.”

“Busy doin’ what?” Dean asked as he started getting out of the car.

“Reading emails.”

Following Dean, you slid out of the car and joined him as he started filling her up with Gas. Sam remained where he was, barely moving a muscle as he clicked through his messages.

Setting the nozzle into the car, Dean then reached out and turned you around. He pressed his chest to your back, and rested his chin on your shoulder as he looked down at his brother in the car. “Emails from who?” he asked as he wrapped his arms around your waist.

Again, Sam barely moved as he answered, “From my friends at Stanford.”

“You’re kidding.” Dean was genuinely surprised. “You still keep in touch with your college buddies?”

“Why not?”

“Well, what exactly do you tell ‘em? You know, about where you’ve been, what you’ve been doin’?”

“Who you’re with?” you added, giving Sam a pointed look.

Finailly, he tore his eyes away from the screen and looked up at the two of you. “I tell ‘em I’m on a road trip with my big brother and little sister. I tell ‘em I needed some time off after Jess.”

Dean’s grip on you tightened the second the word fell from Sam’s lips. He knew you hated being referred to as his sister, he knew it hurt you. If it wasn’t for his grip, you would have walked off. Instead, all you could do was glare at the ground as the brothers continued their conversation.

“Oh, so you lie to ‘em.”

“No. I just don’t tell ‘em….everything,” Sam argued, as if that was a huge difference.

You scoffed at the same time Dean said, “Yeah, that’s called lying. I mean, hey, man, I get it, tellin’ the truth is far worse.”

“So, what am I supposed to do, just cut everybody out of my life?” Sam asked, causing Dean to shrug against you. “You’re serious?”

“Look, it sucks, but in a job like this, you can’t get close to people, period,” Dean noted.

Sam shook his head at him. “You’re kind of anti-social, you know that?

Dean just grinned, pulling you closer again. “I’m plenty social.”

Rolling his eyes, Sam got back to his emails.

You turned your head a little a leaned into Dean, breathing in his scent. It calmed you, the familiarity and certainty of it. It was one of your favourite smells in the entire world.

Letting out a content hum, you tugged on his arms so they’d hold you a little tighter. Grinning at your antics, Deannipped at your shoulder.

Giggling, you turned in his arms, which just prompted him to dive in towards your neck. He made playful snarling noises as he nipped and licked at your pulse point, backing your up against the car- not caring that your ass was right by Sam’s window.

“God…”

“Get over it, Sammy. It’s human nature,” Dean mumbled against your neck.

“No, not you,” Sam told him, concern in his voice which prompted you to push Dean away. “An this email from this girl, Rebecca Warren, one of those friends of mine-”

“Is she hot?” Dean asked, earning an elbow in the ribs from you. He groaned and stepped away, rubbing at his side. “Seriously?”

You just glared and turned back to Sam as he went on.

“I went to school with her, and her brother, Zack. She says Zack’s been charged with murder. He’s been arrested for killing his girlfriend. Rebecca says he didn’t do it, but it sounds like the cops have a pretty good case.”

Still rubbing at his side, Dean stepped up to Sam’s window. “Dude, what kind of people are you hangin’ out with?”

“No, man, I know Zack. He’s no killer,” Sam insisted.

“Well, maybe you know Zack as well as he knows you,” Dean countered. When you turned to glare at him again, he raised his hands up in defence and took a step back. “Or not. Or not.”

“They’re in St. Louis.” Sam suddenly looked up at his brother. “We’re goin’.”

Dean chuckled. “Look, sorry ‘bout your buddy, okay? But this does not sound like our kind of problem.”

“It is our problem. They’re my friends.”

“St. Louis is four hundred miles behind us, Sam.”

Shoving at Dean’s shoulder, you put yourself between the brothers and fixed the oldest one with another glare. “We’re going.”

Dean looked from you, to Sam, and then back as he sighed. “Fine.”

You walked next to Dean, the two of you behind Sam as he stepped up to the door of the house in front of you. The reason you and the older brother were a couple of steps behind was so you had a few extra seconds to lay down some rules.

“Sam has told all his friends I’m his sister,” you reminded Dean. “So no touching. No flirting. Just… treat me like a sister.”

His lips pulled up into a grin. “I don’t know, Y/N, in some places the way I treat you now is how people treat their sister’s.” When you just sighed and rolled your eyes, his grin faltered. “Okay, no touching, no flirting, no messing around. I get it.” He glanced over at you quickly. “You gonna be okay with this?”

“With what?”

“Playing house. Pretending it doesn’t kill you when Sam calls you his sister. And knowing I’m gonna flirt with his friend if she’s hot.”

You stop dead in your tracks and look down at the ground. His words run through your mind as you weigh the situation. You know it’s going to suck, but you also know you have to be here. This was Sam’s friend, you understood the severity of it, which is why you weren’t going to take no for an answer when it came to this case.

Whether it was your kind of thing or not, monster or human, Sam had to be here. You’d do anything for him… even if he did break your heart on a regular basis.

Dean came to stop in front of you, looking down at you with concern. “Y/N, if you can’t do this-”

“I’ll deal, Dean. I always deal.” Shoving past him, you continued on, catching up to Sam just as he finished knocking on the front door.

A moment later the door opened, revealing a woman around the same age as Sam. She was gorgeous, all blonde hair, blue eyes, and a body models and dancers would envy.

Dean’s gonna love her… you mentally sigh. At least she’s a Beta.

“Oh my God.” The woman’s face lit up. “Sam!”

Sam chuckled lightly, smiling down at the woman. “Well, if it isn’t little Becky.”

“You know what you can do with that little Becky crap.” Reaching up, she wrapped her arms around his neck.

As she pulled back, Sam continued to smile down at her- while you did everything to quash the stab of jealousy in your chest. “I got your email.”

“I didn’t think that you would come here,” Rebecca admitted.

Dean, of course, stepped forward then and offered her his hand. “Dean. Older brother.”

Rebecca turned her smile to him and took his hand. “Hi.”

“Hi.” He gave her that grin that you wished was just for you. Letting her hand go, he nodded in your direction. “This is our little sister, Y/N.”

You just offered a small wave and tight smile. “Hey.”

She was a little taken aback by the way you barely moved but smiled at you nonetheless. “Hi.”

“We’re here to help. Whatever we can do,” Sam explained.

Nodding, Rebecca took a step to the side, “Come in.”

Following Rebecca into the house, you stepped ahead of Dean so he could close the door before you continued through the place. Taking it all in, you were amazed at the grandeur of the place. It was like a suburban mansion.

Thinking the same thing as you, Dean gave an impressed whistle. “Nice place.”

“It’s my parents’,” Rebecca explained as she led you further into the house. “I was just crashing here for the long weekend when everything happened. I decided to take the semester off. I’m gonna stay until Zack’s free.”

“Where are your folks?” Sam asked as he walked beside her.

“They live in Paris for half the year, so they’re on their way home now for the trial.” Entering the kitchen, Rebecca moved to the inside of the island bench and reached for the fridge, whish the rest of you stood on the opposite side. “Do you guys want a beer or something?”

Dean smiled widely. “Hey-”

“No, thanks,” Sam cut him off. “So, tell us what happened.”

Shrugging, Rebecca leaned against the bench as she started, “Well, um, Zack came home, and he found Emily tied to a chair. And she was beaten up and bloody, and she wasn’t breathing.” Her voice started to shake as she fought not to cry. “So, he called 911, and the police, they showed up, and they arrested him. But, the thing is, the only way that Zack could’ve killed Emily is if he was in two places at the same time. The police, they have a video. It’s from the security tape from across the street. And it shows Zack coming home at 10:30. Now, Emily was killed just after that, but I swear, he was here with me, having a few beers until at least after midnight.”

“You know, maybe we could see the crime scene. Zack’s house,” Sam suggested.

“We could.” Dean nodded, agreeing with his brother… partially. You could hear the slight tone of question in his voice. He still didn’t see any point in being there.

“Why?” Rebecca looked between the two of them. “I mean, what could you do?”

“Well, me, not much. But Dean’s a cop,” Sam was quick to lie.

Dean laughed… until Sam cut him a glare. Clearing his throat, Dean turned serious. “Detective, actually.”

Rebecca eyed him. “Really?” Dean nodded, prompting her to press for more, “Where?”

“Bisbee, Arizona,” he answered. “But I’m off-duty now.”

“You guys, it’s so nice to offer, but I just,” Rebecca shook her head, “I don’t know.”

Determined to help his friend, Sam insisted, “Bec, look, I know Zack didn’t do this. Now, we have to find a way to prove that he’s innocent.”

After a moment’s pause, she nodded. “Okay. I’m gonna go get the keys.”

You watched her as she walked away, while Dean stepped up to Sam to explain- again- that he didn’t think this was their kind of thing. You didn’t really listen though, as you focused on the hallway Rebecca disappeared down, before turning your attention to the rest of her house.

Her future was dependant on you guys, you realised. Her parents were gone and her brother was locked away. She was a Beta, which meant unless she found someone worth sticking with, she would have a string of boyfriends. Omega and Alpha friends would move on- like Sam- and people would ostracised her because of her brother.

If you didn’t figure out a way to help her, she was going to be alone for most of her life… and that thought killed you, because you knew what it was like to be surrounded by people but not truly belong.

As Sam and Dean stepped into Zack’s house, you stood at the front door with Rebecca. She was looking in, taking in the mess, and the blood, and the police tape. You could feel her worry, and fear, and anxieties.

Sensing the same thing as you, Sam turned to her. “Bec, you wanna wait outside?”

“No.” She shook her head. “I wanna help.” Ducking under the police tape across the doorway, she stepped into the house.

Once she stepped away from the door, you followed her in.

“Tell us what else the police said.”

Rebecca had to fight back tears again, as she responded to Sam, “Well, there’s no sign of a break-in. They say that Emily let her attacker in. The lawyers… they’re already talking about plea bargain.” Her eyes scanned the room, taking in the horror movie scene as she choked on a gasp. “Oh, God….

“Look, Bec, if Zack didn’t do this, it means someone else did,” Sam noted. “Any idea who?”

At first, Rebecca started shaking her head before she seemed to remember something. “Um, there was something, about a week before. Somebody broke in here and stole some clothes. Zack’s clothes. The police, they don’t think it’s anything. I mean, we’re not that far from downtown. Sometimes people get robbed.”

Something caught Sam’s eyes, prompting him to move further into the house. Dean, however, was distracted by the barking dog outside that hadn’t shut up since you’d arrived.

He stepped up to the door and looked out at the angry dog as Rebecca stopped behind him.

“You know, that used to be the sweetest dog,” she told him.

“What happened?” you and Dean asked at the same time.

She shrugged. “He just changed.”

“Do you remember when he changed?” Dean asked.

Thinking about it for a moment, she shrugged again. “I guess around the time of the murder.”

That’s not good...

Walking away from the door, Dean gave you a single look, and that’s all you needed to know to follow. Right behind him, the two of you headed into the hallway where Sam was looking at a picture of himself, Rebecca and Zack. You didn’t miss the happy look on his face in the picture… which was a complete contrast to the conflicted look on his face right now.

“So, the neighbor’s dog went psycho right around the time Zack’s girlfriend was killed,” Dean told his brother.

“Animals can have a sharp sense of the paranormal,” Sam noted.

“Yeah, maybe Fido saw somethin’.”

“So can we assume this is our kind of problem now?” you asked.

Dean turned to give you a pointed look. “‘Our’ problem? You don’t have problems, Y/N. If Dad knew you were even in this house, he’d kill Sam and me. Case or no case, you know you don’t get involved.”

“Then why’d you bring me?” you countered.

“We don’t have a motel room, yet.”

“Could’ve left me at Rebecca’s.”

“I’m not leaving you alone and going off with some other chick. How am I supposed to know you’ll be there when we get back?”

“I don’t have to be alone to leave, Dean. I could walk out the door right now and never look back.”

“Would you two quit it?” Sam hissed, looking over your shoulder to make sure Rebecca hadn’t been listening. “We need to figure out if this is something we can help with, and we can’t do that if you two are bickering like children. So shut up.” Pushing past you, he headed back into the front room where Rebecca was waiting. “Bec, you mentioned security footage. Do you think your lawyers could get them for us?”

“I’ve already got it,” she admitted sheepishly. “I didn’t wanna say something in front of the cop.” Dean chuckled lightly at that. “I stole it off the lawyer’s desk. I just had to see it for myself.”

Grinning from ear to ear, clearly loving Rebecca’s boldness, Dean nodded. “All right. Let’s go watch those tapes.

Sam was focused on the television screen as the security footage tapes rolled. You were sitting on the couch, next to Rebecca, doing your best to ignore the way Dean sat on the arm next to her. How he leaned in to her slightly. He was so Alpha, and it was both annoying and distracting.

“Here he comes.” Rebecca gestured to the screen.

You watched as a hood figure stepped into the line of the camera. Sure enough, it was her brother.

“22:04, that’s just after ten. You said time of death was about 10:30,” Dean noted.

Rebecca nodded. “Our lawyers hired some kind of video expert. He says the tape’s authentic. It wasn’t tampered with.”

“Hey, Bec,” Sam suddenly spoke up, pausing the tapes to turn to the rest of you, “can we take those beers now?”

“Oh, sure.” Rebecca nodded and stood without missing a beat.

Before she could get fr, however, Sam stopped her. “Hey.” When she turned back to him, he asked, “Maybe some sandwiches, too?”

“What do you think this is, Hooters?” she scoffed before leaving the room.

Dean chuckled. “I wish.”

Not a second passed before you elbowed him in the ribs.

“Ow! What was that for?”

“Being a douche,” you snapped, pushing off the couch to go stand by Sam. “You saw something.”

He nodded as he rewound the tape. “Check this out.”

As he pressed play, you and Dean watched the screen to see what might’ve caught Sam’s eye. He played it slowly, frame by frame, which allowed you to spot the way Zack’s eyes glowed silver.

“That’s not normal.”

“Or maybe it’s just a camera flare,” Dean argued.

“That’s not like any camera flare I’ve ever seen,” Sam countered. “You know, a lot of cultures believe that a photograph can catch a glimpse of the soul.” He turned away from the screen to look at you and Dean. “Remember that dog that was freakin’ out? Maybe he saw this thing. Maybe this is some kind of dark double of Zack’s, something that looks like him but isn’t him.”

“Like a Doppelganger,” Dean suggested.

You slapped his chest as an idea came to you. “Could be a shifter.”

Glaring down at you, Dean rubbed at his chest. “You’re really violent.”

“You have no idea.”

Munching on a slice of pizza, you were stretched out, laying on your stomach on the bed you were sharing with Dean. He and Sam were at the table, drinking beer and eating as well. They were flicking through their father’s journal and some lore, trying to figure out what the might be dealing with.

Your eyes were on the TV, watching the soap opera rerun without really paying much attention to it. You were more focused on the pizza, to be honest.

Soft talking eventually pulled your gaze from the slice of heaven and glowing screen. Looking over at the brothers, you spotted them glancing over at you here and there.

“We got a problem, boys?” You asked, shifting to sit cross legged on the bed instead.

Looking to Dean, Sam gave Dean a pointed look, raising an eyebrow at him.

Dean sighed, putting his book down before turning to you. “We think you should stay behind tomorrow.”

Your brows furrowed. “Why?”

“This thing is going after girls.”

“Last time I checked, there were billions of girls in the world. Millions in the US. Thousands in this state. Hundreds in this city.” You shrugged. “Pretty sure I’m safe, boys.”

Sam looked from you, to his brother, and then back. Dean didn’t know what to say to make the situation better or to get you to stay. So, Sam decided to give it a go.

“I know you hate being left behind. I get it. And before, I would have argued with Dean, you know I would have. But with this case, I can’t risk worrying about you and everything else at the same time.”

Part of you wanted to question why he’d be worrying about you, but that part was petty and bitchy. Despite the distance between you and Sam, you knew he stilled cared. Perhaps that’s why he kept you at arms length.

“Okay. I’ll stay. But don’t think I’m gonna let you guys keep benching me. You can only keep me locked up for so long.”

Dean nuzzled into your shoulder, causing you to wake with a groan. “What time is it?”

“Five o’clock,” he answered, mouthing at your shoulder.

You groaned again, harder and louder. “In the morning?”

“Sammy woke me up,” he explained just as the shower turned on. “We’ve got some time.”

“Before what? And to do what?”

“Before Sammy gets out of the shower. Before we leave. And to do this…” He pressed himself against you, grinding his hard cock into your ass.

You let out a moan, fingers curling into the sheets as your back arched into him. “Dean.”

“Missed you, ‘mega,” he breathed against the back of your neck as his hand slid down to your panties. “Been too long.” You didn’t stop him as he pulled the cotton to the side, exposing your quickly dampening slit.

He thrust his fingers into your soaked slit, pulling a long whine from your throat.

“Not gonna fuck you. Gonna make you come on these fingers.” He curved them and found your sweet spot. As you started mewling into your pillow, he started bucking his hips against your ass. “Give me a reason to hurry back to you tonight,” he murmured into your hair.

“Dean.” You clawed at the sheets. “Please.”

Picking up the pace, he fucked you harder and faster. The heel of his palm pressed against your clit in just the right way. Before long, you were coming undone, crying into your pillow.

“That’s it. That’s my girl.” His fingers worked you through your climax.

When you were done, he pulled his fingers out. You turned your head and watched as he licked them clean, groaning at your taste. It stirred fresh feelings of arousal in your stomach, making your scent grow thicker in the room.

“Keep doing that and I will fuck you… and knot you,” he warned.

Biting your lip, you thrust your hips against the bed, knowing it just made your scent fill the room even more.

“Sweetheart,” he gave a short grunt, leaning in closer to you. “Sammy is gonna walk in here any second. You want him to see me fucking you breathless?”

His words only made you grind into the sheets harder.

Groaning and shaking his head, he leaned in to capture you lips with his own. You could taste yourself on his lips, and you moaned wanting to lick into his mouth to taste more. Dean rolled you over to your back and settled between your thighs so he could grind against your partially covered slit.

Tearing your lips from him, running your hands through his hair to pull him closer, you whined, “Don’t fuck Rebecca.”

He pulled back slightly to meet your gaze as he continued to grin into you.

As he searched your eyes, you added, “I know you want to, I know I said I’d deal, but I can’t. Please. Don’t come home smelling like her.”

Not a second passed before he nodded. “Okay.”

Fisting your hand in your hair, you pulled him down and crashed his lips onto yours as you came once more.

Dean grunted into your mouth, spilling into his briefs as he kept bucking against you. He didn’t even care that he came in his pants, barely touched, like a teenager.

Breathing heavily, he rolled over and landed on the other side of the bed with a satisfied grin and a chuckle. “Wait for it…”

A few seconds later, the bathroom door opened as Sam stepped out. In an instant he was covering his face and groaning, turning away from the two of you.

“Seriously?!”

Dean just laughed harder, jumping out of bed to go take a shower of his own. “Don’t act like she doesn’t smell like warm pie and perfection, Sam. I know what you’re hiding over there.” He gestured to the way his brother was turned the other way. “Why don’t you go take care of that little ‘problem’ of yours?” He winked before disappearing into the bathroom.

Now alone, Sam and you met each other’s gaze awkwardly.

You opened your mouth to speak, but before you could utter a single sound he was dashing off, hurrying out of the room. With a defeated sigh, you dropped your head onto your pillow and prayed you’d be able to get back to sleep.

Bamby

[thebeethathums]

Observers - 21

Pairing: Sherlock Holmes x Reader

Warnings: None

Lestrade seemed surprised when the two of you walked through his door, “Where’s your usual Watson, Sherlock? And why is this one covered in paint?” You let out an exasperated sigh as Sherlock offered a short explanation, “John’s out boring some girl on a pointless date and (F/n) is a painter by profession.” “It’s more of a hobby,” you corrected, causing Sherlock to give you a surprised look, before adding, “He all but dragged me out of my flat, I didn’t have a chance to clean up properly.” “I would say it's much more than a hobby.” Sherlock countered, cutting off whatever Lestrade had been about to say as he examined you carefully for anything he may have missed that would have caused you to answer that way. “Do we really have to discuss this now, Sherlock?” you sighed, shooting Lestrade an apologetic look. “We do. Lestrade can wait.”  

 “Hey!”    

“Why do you say that?”

Letting out a frustrated huff, you complied, “I haven’t painted anything in a little over two years, I can hardly give painter as my profession now can I?”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow at you, silently asking further questions, which you ignored, turning to look at Lestrade, “What can we do for you, Detective Inspector?” “Well, I was hoping he could clear up-“ Lestrade began only to be interrupted by Sherlock, “You were painting before we left.” “Oh for heaven’s sake, Sherlock. Let it go will you.” You growled, trying to keep your annoyance and frustration at bay. “I will when you explain.” Sherlock insisted and you looked to Lestrade for help. He just shrugged, “You might as well answer him so we can get on with it.” You sighed, pinching the bridge of your nose, “Yes, I was painting before you came and dragged me here for something you now seem to have completely lost interest in but, like I told you before, I had an artistic moment. What is on that canvas is not worthy of being called a painting. Now out with it, Lestrade, before he comes up with something else and I end up doing something I’ll regret.” Lestrade spilled his purpose before Sherlock could say anything else, “There was a break-in at St. Paul’s Cathedral and Sherlock was seen leaving the scene just after we showed up. So he-“ “When?” you interjected insistently, struggling to not let annoyance seep into your voice. “Nine days ago at around quarter past nine.” You rolled your eyes convincingly, “Impossible. Sherlock was with me all night. John designated me babysitter so he didn’t blow up the apartment with his latest experiment. Now my favorite shirt is ruined.” Lestrade eyed you suspiciously, “But I-“ “Do you really want me to go into detail of what happened that night? I can assure you it isn’t-” “No. No, I believe you.” Lestrade interrupted, thinking better of it as he assured himself he must have just seen someone who looked like Sherlock. “Good. Now if that’s all, I’d very much like to get home.” “Yes, that’s it. It was nice to see you again, Miss Watson. Keep him out of trouble.” You were already part of the way out his door, pulling Sherlock along behind you before he was finished, and called over your shoulder, “Good night, Lestrade.” You tugged him into the elevator and then let him go as the doors slid shut, quietly fuming over the entire situation. Sherlock, of course, didn’t know when to leave well enough alone and flatly stated, “You just lied to the police.” You calmly stated, keeping your eyes trained on the doors, “No, I manipulated the truth. You were with me all night, John did tell me not to let you blow up anything, and my favorite shirt is, in fact, ruined. I just left out the bit that we weren’t at the flat and that I ruined my shirt with paint yesterday.” He considered this brilliant little trick you had played while wondering why he had missed it in the first place and then looked over to where you were, “Why can’t you paint?” You gritted your teeth, trying desperately not to snap at him, “It’s complicated, Sherlock. I’m not entirely sure myself.” He could see he had hit a nerve with his question and, despite wanting to press you further to see your reaction, he fell silent. Again he found himself not wanting you to be cross with him, trying to think of a way to ease your temper, and quickly came to a solution. He hesitated slightly and then took your hand up in his, giving it a reassuring squeeze. Your head snapped around to look up at him both seriously confused and entirely unamused but he gave you a small smile in that way that he had of just slightly pulling the sides of his lips up for a moment and then letting them fall again. You searched his face with furrowed brows, your mind racing as your thoughts all competed for attention, and found that there was something genuine in his expression. You looked away, not accepting it but not rejecting it either, and wondered what Sherlock was up to and what this strange behavior was all about. You certainly couldn’t consider it a fluke anymore. Still, you couldn’t say that you didn’t enjoy how his hand dwarfed yours as his long fingers wrapped around it. Coming to a decision, you cautiously interlaced your fingers with his, keeping your expression blank as you accepted whatever this was. You could hardly call it a relationship, a fact that you were actually grateful for, as you weren’t ready for anything like that again, but still it was something… maybe just each of you understanding the other in a way that no one else did.

[scriptsandlattes]

Sherlock Holmes and Fanfiction: A Study in the Development of Humanity

August 17, 2019

           Along with having a Zygoma that would make a cheese knife jealous, Benedict Cumberbatch marvelously portrays the fictitious, and often socially blind, detective created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and is brought up as one of the many iterations of Sherlock Holmes. Whether you prefer the serious only-time-for-fun-when-I-drank-to-much, Cumberbatch and Freeman as Sherlock and Watson respectively, or favor Robert Downey Jr. and his Watson, Jude Law’s more comical approach, you have seen at least one version of the duo represented on-screen that is different from their literary counterparts; Which is anything but surprising, as it is a series of shorts that were written in the 1880s. Some laugh at the idea that fan-made fiction is an artifact of pop culture, but every story is inspired by another story. Even the original stories are often based loosely, stiffly, or satirically around witnessed events. Fanfiction is a study in humanity, and it's social and historical developments. It also brings out creative thinking, individually and collectively.

What makes writing stories using Sir Arthur Doyle’s characters on a platform such as Wattpad (or Tumblr) less accepted than a BBC or Hollywood production? It does not matter where the source material comes from; the original idea will be spun into someone's inspiration. The amount of research and work that goes into a good fanfiction should be commended as well, as writers can spend hours researching methods or mental incapacities. Then again, "good" is a subjective term, and you can often tell when something isn’t thoroughly researched. Even with films, tv shows, and big, commercially marketed books, there is an argument over whether the story is good or bad. While some consider fan-written fiction lower than kitsch, being a mimic is a skill. Yes, some of the characters are already established, but the writer still created an original character- or characters- and plot ideas, which means the story already has a new element added and they now must create interactions with the pre-established characters without disrespecting the constitution of the original characters or their creator. Whether the original creator would accept the fans version of the story matters little, as both versions are the author’s head canon. As with any form of art, kitsch or not, it will enviably cause controversy.

Cumberbatch's portrayal of Sherlock Holmes is the updated inspiration presented by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat. To be more relatable to a broader audience, Holmes, Watson, and Moriarty are younger, and electronically inclined but still clever enough to keep the “old-timers” interested. As times change, more ideas are allowed. The mental health of it all has developed as well; the more scientists learn about mental wellness and the human psyche, the more we can be algorithmic with how characters will or won’t react to different disorders. Sally Donovan calls Sherlock a freak, John Watson rolls with it, and Detective Lestrade sees Sherlock’s potential.

While there is little exploration as to why Downey Jr’s Sherlock Holmes is the way he is, looking at it from a psychological point of view, we can identify the adolescent issues that caused Cumberbatch’s Sherlock to have grown into the man he is. Nothing sums up young Sherlock’s development more than “the mind is inherently designed to understand life as a narrative.” (Borges, 1962) Even Sigmund Freud agrees that the psyche reshapes the conflicts revisited in narratives as a way to cope (Danesi, 2019). In Gatiss’ version, the Holmes brothers have a younger sister. She was closer to Sherlock’s age and began to feel ignored and jealous of Sherlock’s relationship with his best friend Victor, so she shoved Victor down a well and refused to tell them where he was. It is not until after she burned down the family home and is sent away that Sherlock rewrites his memories, forgetting his younger sister and making his childhood friend his childhood dog, (that never existed), Redbeard. At one-point, Mycroft tells Sherlock he is the man he is because of the memory of his sister.

The same events also lay the foundation for understanding Mycroft as well. The human psyche is a precious thing. Where Sherlock forgot his trauma, and his brain seems to have rewritten the way he reacts completely, Mycroft lives with the guilt of knowing what he did. He knew the Eurus was locked away and did not die in the house fire she set, as he told his family. Perhaps his internalization of emotions is how he lives with the guilt, like a self-inflicted punishment. The more you pay attention to Gatiss as Mycroft, the more you can tell he truly cares about his little brother, but he is afraid to look weak, so he instead acts like he does not and allows the hostility.

Inspirations grow with the times. More ideas are accepted, and technology is upgraded. While Cumberbatch’s Sherlock Holmes occasionally falls back into archaic tendencies, he uses modern technology such as keeping a blog and texting. Downey Jr. offers us the closer to the original version with telegram communications. Setting aside the Abominable Bride episode which is meant to take place in 1895- it is likely that if the two versions were to switch places, they would not be able to do their job as efficiently, if at all. They wouldn’t have the technology they know how to use; one would have the advanced tech while the other would think waiting for, or writing, a telegram is tedious.

When studying Pop Culture, we must recognize that linguistics and logistics have changed to sate modern speech and society. “The game is afoot” becomes “the game is on.” Texting and calling someone on their mobile phone became the new telegram and messenger correspondence. Phrases like “brother mine” and “blud” are granted between the Holmes brothers to show affection, even if it is sarcastic. There is a scene between Detective Inspector Lestrade and John Watson where Lestrade tells John that Sherlock is a great man and that maybe one day he will be a good one. (Moffat et al. 2010) Which implies that Sherlock is good at what he does, but not the kindest person. It is this scene that tells the viewers that if Sherlock were less talented but compassionate, he would be a good person.

The good man speech is alluded to in the third episode in the fourth series when Sherlock shows genuine concern for his brother and even addresses Lestrade by his correct first name, indicating character growth. That humanizing character growth is what gives Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock an appeal that Robert Downey Jr.’s version does not have. It also suggests that Cumberbatch’s Sherlock pays attention but chooses to goad their disdain deliberately, thereby making moments like that more precious.

What was it Carl Jung said about mischief? “In every person, there exists a predilection for puerile mischief.” (Dansei, 2019) So In a way, this incarnation of Sherlock Holmes is The Hero and The Trickster. He also has more than one form of the shadow he is dealing with- the shadow within himself, and the shadow that takes the form of cases and enemies. When considering Sherlock, a “trickster,” we must look past the usual villainy that is partnered with the mythology. His trickery comes from his lack or denial of social skills. In the second episode of the first series, The Blind Banker, Sherlock allows himself to be contradicted to move his case along. He also tends to use physically harmless manipulation when a case is involved. In that same episode, there is a scene with Molly Hooper that illustrates this action. Though non-cannon to Sir Conan Doyle’s original work, she is a specialist registrar, (intern), in the morgue at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital that Sherlock flirts with Molly to gain access to bodies in the morgue without having to go through official channels. He recognizes her affection for him and manipulates that. However, he has never intentionally been cruel to his tolerable affiliates. That is where he differs from the usual trickster mythologies.

When Mark Gatiss and Stephen Moffat created their version of Sherlock Holmes, it was not your twelve-year-old-girl-who-doesn’t-understand-the-dimensions-of-the-characters, fantasy. They cared about the characters and enjoyed the adventures of the detective so much growing up they wanted to create their own version., and that admiration demanded the creation of a beautifully magical world that transcends the archaic and challenges the archetypes. There are even liberties taken with John’s wife, Mary. As she does not have a detailed back story in the original work, she is probably the most natural character to build around. She could have been a ‘villain’ or ‘the wise old Oak’ that helps John in ways Sherlock can’t. Which takes us back to the role’s women play throughout history and anthropology.

Pop Culture can be considered an experiment and expression of postmodern democracy, and as with any other viewpoint, it is not shared universally (Dansei, 2019). This democracy and societal growth are evident in the way BBC’s Sherlock portrays Mary Watson as a strong, independent, and charismatic woman who enjoys the eccentricities of Sherlock Holmes. She even understood why he faked his death. Since the beginning, she has been in his corner and pushed the relationship between John and Sherlock to stay the same. It was not until later in the series that we find out why she is so accommodating. Where Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes shows us Mary Watson as ‘John’s soon-to-be-wife, who happens to be a governess,’ Sherlock shoves the progression in our faces.

Historically, women have been submissive; to be seen and not heard. 2009’s Sherlock Holmes movies played by Robert Downey Jr, there is the implication that women are second-class citizens and not often taken seriously, which allows the deception between Ms. Adler and Mr. Holmes. While she was using him for information, he was using her for creature comforts. It was not proper to openly discuss sexuality or lack thereof. The audience doesn’t even know how or when Sherlock Holmes met Irene Adler in this ideation. However, Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat challenge their audiences with a polar opposite character in their version of Irene Adler. She is an open and marketed Dominatrix, which accepts that women can take charge of their own life. In the wake of movements like #HeforShe and #Mettoo, Laura Pulver gives us the power to challenge inequality and harassment.

As previously mentioned, Molly Hooper is a character of merit in the BBC world of Sherlock Holmes. However, there is no place for her in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s works. The idea of women being in a power position like that was outside of comprehension in the 1880s. There is some subjugation with Molly accepting the way Sherlock treats her, but she is smart and influential and respected. Her education in the medical field illustrates how society has grown.  Women can study more than the necessities for being “Susie Homemaker.” Molly is Sherlock’s access point to bodies and labs in the hospital. Her allowing him access to the hospital helps him solve the crimes without breaking more laws himself by breaking into the morgue. He will never admit it, but she helps keep him human and occasionally inspires ideas with her medical perspective. It also helps that she is not “a complete idiot.”  

While the drug use seems to be a staple in the Sherlock Holmes lore, Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock doesn’t drink eye drops to get high when he can’t find substance. He also isn’t trapping flies under a glass container and plucking the violin to observe their reactions. This version of Sherlock Holmes also portrays scientific advancement outside of women now contributing. It is mentioned in the show the Sherlock is a graduate chemist, and he is often seen appropriately using a microscope and slides when testing drops of blood and chemical compositions. There will always be new scientific methods and discoveries. The microscope and sterile slides are scientific improvements that were needed to help science move forward. The best science starts with a sterile environment. Sherlock even enjoys experiments with microwaves and refrigeration, implying that he is monitoring the viability of a subject in various temperatures, and the bacterial reactions as well. Though there were refrigeration units, the microwave experiments would not exist unless he was to first invent a unit to conduct and control microwaves.

Some of the experiments are used to solve current cases, while others are entertainment because he is bored. He is meticulous with his work and can even identify 140 different types of tobacco ash. Another thing that has grown with over the years is the knowledge of chemical reactions. The scientific advancements shown to audiences with any Sherlock Holmes variation seem to live with the memories of Sir Conan Doyle’s own growing up in the era of scientific change. Some, such as BBC’s version, highlight the advancements, some stay stagnant, but the impact is still there, whether it is a history in science lesson or scientific progress that inspires new ideas. Each version of Sherlock Holmes has a certain cleverness to it. New ideas in science, intelligent women, even annoyingly clever criminals. Every release is another piece of the puzzle, a collaborative art form that feeds on societal growth, innovation, and invention while somehow keeping our history present.

In general, Sherlock on the BBC gives more humanity and dimensions to the characters. Character building is a skill that many take for granted. World-building is two steps beyond that. But to take old-fashioned characters and throw them forward in history is taking that challenge and upping the ante. Both versions illustrate how much humankind has changed over the years, but also how we stayed the same. We’ve always been creative beings, and while Robert Downey Jr. was not afraid to don a dress and bonnet (which offered him anonymity as a woman), Cumberbatch takes a different approach to the “hide in plain sight” idea. Creative difference, but just as effective. Whether our creativity comes from something manmade or our own ingenuity, we never grow out of it, just develop it.